Tidying Up At Day's End--and Your Chance to Board an Italian Navy Training Ship

The Italian flag is lowered at the end of the day to the strains of the national anthem

An Italian naval ship has been moored alongside the Riva for the last couple of days during the 10th Regional Seapower Symposium of the Mediterranean and Black Sea held at the Arsenale and attended by representatives of 49 of the world's navies (http://www.marina.difesa.it/EN/events).

Aside from actual cruise ships, this Italian ship is the only thing that has rivaled in size the mega-yachts of Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen (which was moored around the same spot for over a week last month, and about which you can read more here: http://www.businessinsider.com/paul-allens-superyacht), and Roman Abramovich (whose own mega-yacht it's not hard to imagine may be more heavily armed than the Italian navy ship).

For the last three days the past and present of the Italian navy were represented along the Riva, as you can see in the image below. The Palinuro, the three-masted iron-hulled barquentine, launched in 1934 and still in use as a training vessel, will remain here until at least Sunday, and is open to the public according to the schedule below:

Saturday, 24 October and Sunday, October 25:

--from 10 am until noon

--from 3 pm until 6 pm,

--from 9 pm until 11 pm

Though the closer ship above has departed, the three-mast ship in the background (and below) will remain in Venice through the weekend