The unregulated growth, or encouragement, of tourism in Venice makes it harder and harder to find a place to escape from the invading masses. Even the further reaches of the lagoon are not safe from private tourist or party boats, the latter thumping with trashy dance music both day and night.
Above, a boat of locals takes refuge from tour boats in a waterway too shallow to allow for the latters' passage--though, alas, the sound from the disco boats carries loud and clear across the open lagoon.
Definitiely, jet killed the World.
ReplyDeleteThough to be fair, some would say opened it up as well...
DeleteWe get these party boats on the Thames too, up and down all evening in the off-season, and almost all night at Christmas and mid-summer. All those derelict wharves turned into trendy flats with Windows you can't open due to the noise, and, no AC in them either :-)
ReplyDeleteYou have my sympathy, Rob; I've become an old codger prone to mutter to himself at the mere sight of a party boat. One of the things I liked about Venice was that, when all is said and done, there's really nothing "hip" about it, no "scene," and therefore pretty quiet. But I guess the claim of party boats is to make their own "scene". Ugh. As for those converted wharves: I guess one must be willing to suffer to be fashionable.
DeleteIt's really sad how noisy our world has become. I hate those party people who must have noise all the time, everywhere.
ReplyDeleteI agree, Lynners; though, alas, my 8-year-old son--with his eyes locked admiringly upon any Venetian teen pounding over the lagoon in his fiberglass outboard motorboat, blaring bad dance music--would not.
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