Venice Gets First Female Gondolier

First Woman to break into 900 Year-old Club

(ANSA)Venice, June 26 - Venice on Friday got its first official female gondolier when a married mother-of-two passed her test, breaking into one of Italy's last male bastions.

Giorgia Boscolo, 23, passed a gondoliering course introduced by the city council in 2007 to become the first certified woman gondolier in the lagoon in nine centuries.

While she waits to finish her apprenticeship, Boscolo will be able to ferry passengers around as a sort of 'second captain'.

''I'm immensely happy and proud but today my day starts like every other, taking the children to school,'' she told ANSA.

Boscolo inherited her passion for navigating Venice's canals from her gondolier father, Dante, when she was seven.

''I've always loved gondolas, and unlike my three sisters I preferred to punt with my father instead of going out with my friends''.

She dismissed concerns from male gondoliers that she isn't strong enough to handle the 11-metre-long, 500-kilogramme boats, saying ''childbirth is much more difficult''.

Boscolo's father said he was happy for his daughter.

''I still think being a gondolier is a man's job because it requires a lot of physical effort,'' he admitted, ''but I'm sure that with experience Giorgia will be able to do it easily''.

Dante's colleague, Roberto, said: ''Giorgia deserved it because she worked really hard, coming along with us in her free time to learn the trade''.

Before the establishment of the 'school' for gondoliers, the profession was passed down from father to son.

TWO OTHER WOMEN FAILED TO MAKE THE GRADE.

Two other women enrolled on the course failed to match Boscolo.

Neither Alessandra Taddei, a local woman who belongs to the Venetian rowing club, nor German-American Alexandra Hai, who has fought a 12-year battle for the right to become a gondolier, passed the test.

Even before the official course was launched in 2007, Hai had taken the gondoliers' test four times, steering her boat along canals and performing tricky manoeuvres. But each time she failed, saying that examiners were ''overly strict''.

She has accused the 425-strong association of Venetian gondoliers of deliberately keeping her out because of her sex, but the association has refuted this claim fiercely, saying she simply isn't good enough.

Hai, 42, did however win a small victory when a court upheld her right to ferry hotel guests about in a gondola even though she has no licence. She is employed by a Venetian hotel to offer precisely this service.

There are 40 places on the gondolier course, which lasts six months.

It includes 400 hours of instruction in using the distinctive single oar that is used to propel a gondola through the water.

Students must learn how to steer the banana-shaped boats from the back and the front. They also have to take English courses, study sailing law and demonstrate perfect knowledge of Venice's canals and landmarks.

For more on the Venice Gondoliers visit WebVisionItaly Venice Channel show: The Gondoliers of Venice and for more on the fraternity of the Gondoliers.

Giro d' Italia Day 3 - Grado to Valdobbiadene - Petacchi Wins Stage 3

Another beautiful day in Italy's Veneto region for Day 3 of the Giro d'Italia. Today's Giro stage at 200 km had the cyclist traveling from the picturesque adriatic town Grado to Valdobbiadene at the foothills of Italy's Alps. This stage traveled through the beautiful green country side and rolling soft hills on the way up to the base of the Italian Alps. Although the cyclists make their way up some hills today's race was mostly flat.

The green fields that lined today's Giro d'Italia were lush with vineyards where the famous grapes for prosecco are grown. The towns were full of people and the race route lined with people who love the action. And with 35km left, action si exactly what today's Giro d'Italia Stage 3 offered.

The action really heated up when the breakaway pack was reached with 35 km left in race setting up a finish through the streets of Valdobbiadene. With 25 km to go the Liquigas team did well protected its lead building a nice platform for its sprinters to finish the stage At about 16 km to go 16km the pack got very strung out on the gorgeous, hilly loop around Valdobbiadene that finished things up for the day.

With 10km to go Voeckler and Malacarne broke clear of the pack, taking a few others with them - and just behind the Peloton is brought grinding to a halt by a crash. With 9km Voeckler and the rest of the leading group can't work out where the others have gone - they can't believe their luck - but Ivan Basso and Petacchi aren't that far behind. With 5 km to go 10 riders are stacked up in the lead pack.

The last 3 km to go was a race of races with Bruseghin going for it and the pack following. Then with 1km to go Bruseghin went to early - Visconti charged, building himself a 100m lead with 1km left. But his legs gave up with less than .2 km left to go Petacchi comes through with a time of 4:45:27. Once again stage 3 of the Giro d'Italia did not disappoint.

#Giro d'Italia Stage 1 Results - Venice Lido

Results from the 20.5-kilometer team time trial at the Giro d'Italia on May 9, 2009.

After the jump Giro d'Italia 100th race stage routes. Jump >


Team Columbia - High Road: 21:50
Garmin - Slipstream: 21:56
Astana: 22:03
LPR Brakes - Farnese Vini: 22:12
ISD: 22:17
Team Katusha: 22:25
Rabobank: 22:28
Liquigas: 22:30
Lampre: 22:32
Team Milram: 22:39

For more about Italy travel visit WebVisionItaly.com.

Giro d'Italia Stage 1 Route Map - Venice Lido

Giro d'Italia Stage 1 Route Map Venice Lido- May 9, 2009

The Giro d'Italia bike race starts in Venice this Saturday with the stage 1 20.5km Team Time Trial on the Venice Lido, which is just across the water from Venice.

Lance Armstrong and his Astana team had insisted he would be trying to win in Italy, but a crash and broken collarbone at the Tour of Castilla and Leon in March put those dreams to rest. Although Lance Armstrong has won 7 Tour de France, he has never raced the Giro d'Italia. There were even doubts about whether he would make the starting line in Italy but he will be there and riding for team-mate and compatriot Levi Leipheimer, whilst looking for stage victories.

"Of course breaking my collarbone has changed my ambitions for the Giro, but I look forward to that race," said Armstrong. "I can ride without pressure in an event that I've always wanted to do and I can try to help Levi win. The first priority is to protect Levi and make sure that he fulfills his potential." Armstrong, who is famous for dating actress Ashley Olsen, Singer Sheryl Crow, and actress Kate Hudson, is expecting a baby with girlfriend Anna Hensen.

Leipheimer, who has won the Tour of California and the Tour of Castilla and Leon this season, is an experienced three-week Tour rider who finished second in last year's Tour of Spain and third in the Tour de France in 2007.

Leipheimer will have former Giro winners Ivan Basso, Damiano Cunego, Danilo Di Luca and Gilberto Simoni as competition and he knows his toughest challenge will come from home team Italy's racers.

"The Italians are super focused on it, and they know the Giro in and out," said Leipheimer, who finished 18th in this race last year. "With the Giro, we'll just take it day by day, kilometer by kilometre and just sort of have fun and do our best."

Basso seems to be the early favorite. The 31-year-old Italian Liquigas rider won the race by a huge margin in 2006 before he got caught up in the Operation Puerto scandal and was banned for two years. His closest competition could come from 27-year-old Cunego of Lampre, who won the race in 2004 and has shown good stage race form this year in winning the week-long Coppi e Bartali. LPR Brakes's Di Luca, the 2007 winner, could be amongst the front runners as could reigning Tour de France champion Carlos Sastre.

For all the Giro d'Italia 2009 stage maps and Giro d'Italia route map click Italy Inside.

Click WebVisionItaly.com for Venice video and the region of Veneto video including shows about the Scrovegni Chapel and the Bo University in Padua, Palladio's architecture in Vicenza, and the ancient Romans in Verona to Romeo and Juliet the famous lovers of Verona.

For more about the Giro d'Italia including where to find the Giro d'Italia webvision click universalsports.com or SteepHill.TV.

Capucci's Legendy Fabric Display Closes Tomorrow in Venice

Roberto Capucci's legendary 'fabric sculptures' are on display in Venice at Palazzo Fortuny until tomorrow, May 5.

The Capucci show explores three decades of change in the fashion maestro's creations. The 30 works of art, created between 1978 and 2009, map the development in Capucci's work, starting with Ventaglio, the brilliant red creation that was the first in his series of 'fan' dresses. The exhibition then moves into his designs from the 1980s, replete with panel inserts, flower forms, boxes and tubular designs.

Donna Gioiello is from this period, a black, white and red taffeta created in 1984, inspired by the Doge and the Carnival of Venice.

Among his more recent creations, the exhibition features 'Sposa In Rosso', a two-tone wedding dress with golden embroidery on public display for the first time.

From the time of his earliest creations, Capucci's origami-like designs have been closer to elaborate works of sculpture than clothing.

For more about Italy fashion click WebVisionItaly's Fashion channel.

Venice opens bids for 'new' bridge: Sponsor sought for redesign of Ponte dell'Accademia

Venice city council on Thursday opened the bidding to design a replacement for one of the city's key bridges, the Ponte dell'Accademia.

The current bridge on the site, made of wood and iron, opened in 1933 but was only ever intended as a temporary, stopgap measure, and the city council wants to make it a permanent structure.

The council itself doesn't plan to spend a penny and is instead in search of a sponsor to fork out five million euros, an architect and a building company to present a joint offer by the end of August.

''I think that Venice can aspire to finding someone who wants to link their name with this bridge,'' said public works councillor Mara Rumiz.

Under the council plans, the iron arches supporting the bridge will remain, but the wooden section will be replaced with a new design, either in stone or a metal alloy, and the entire structure given an overhaul.

Rumiz on Thursday admitted that Venetians had become fond of the bridge, and that she expected there would be some polemics.

She said it was necessary to ''overcome'' the idea that Venice was ''made of postcards'' without any structures that ''need to be eliminated''.

Rumiz also said it will be difficult to find a way of making the bridge accessible to the disabled.

''But we like a challenge,'' she added.

The Ponte dell'Accademia, which stands outside the famous Accademia Gallery, is one of just four bridges across Venice's main thoroughfare, the Grand Canal.

The Ponte dell'Accademia is perhaps one of the slowest building projects to ever take shape.

The idea was first discussed seriously in 1488 but was only built four centuries later on a design by British architect Alfred Neville.

This first bridge, made of iron, was inaugurated on 20 November 1854 but had to be torn down within a few decades as a result of wear and tear.

At the time, city planners hoped to replace it with a stone bridge, and an elaborate winning design was even selected.

Until this could be built, however, a temporary wooden bridge designed by the engineer Eugenio Mozzi was erected, and opened to the public in 1933.

Some 75 years later, after a stream of minor and major patch-up jobs to keep it safe, this is the design that still stands today.

To receive WebVisionItaly.com show updates, news about Italy, and to receive travel deals to Italy follow Motorino Man on Twitter at www.Twitter.com/ItalyTravel

Can Venice use Algae to Produce Electricity?

The city of Venice has announced a plan to produce 50 percent of its electricity needs from an algae-based power plant instead of fossil fuels. This is the exact kind of local thinking, innovation, and planning that the G20 meeting on April Fool's Day cannot create.

The water-filled city is turning what has become a nuisance into a renewable energy resource. The city will be producing electricity from two types of algae that are brought in clinging to ships and regularly grow over the seaport; Sargassum muticum and Undaria pinnafitida. The algae will be cultivated and treated in laboratories to turn it into fuel. The fuel will then be used to power turbines in a new 40 MW power plant in the center of the city.

In order to make the new power plant truly carbon neutral, any CO2 produced by the process will be fed back to the algae.

The algae plant project will cost the city $264 million and should be operating in two years. WebVisionItaly.com will follow the story - sounds so good let's hope it's not an April fools!

Save Venice -Text SMS and Internet Funding for Rialto Bridge

Venice is continuing its drive to help save the city's art heritage by receiving mobile text SMS and Internet funding.

The campaign, launched last year, is dubbed SMS, which also stands for Save St Mark's.

Visitors to the www.venezia.net website can click on a 'digital' tile of Palazzo Ducale to contribute to the city's upkeep.

This year's goals are to restore the city's famed Rialto Bridge and three historic churches: San Giorgio Maggiore, San Giuseppe and the Chiesa dei Gesuiti, as well as the Scuola di San Rocco with its famed Tintoretto paintings.

Last year, SMS saw concerts by Momix, Joan Baez and Elton John, who has a house in Venice. The high spot of this year's SMS campaign will be a Simple Minds concert in St Mark's in July, organisers said Friday.

The full program of events will be unveiled this week.

Wed Me in Verona: Ciy of Romeo and Juliet to Charge for Weddings on the Balconey -

The Italian city of Verona, home to literature's most famous lovers, is trying to woo the world's couples into tying the knot on the scene of Romeo and Juliet's most romantic encounter.

Under the scheme, to be launched in the next few days, spouses-to-be would say their vows on the balcony from which William Shakespeare's heroine is thought to have summoned her Romeo.

Verona Tourism Councillor Daniele Polato said Verona wants to be a ''wedding capital'' to rival the world's other popular wedding spots.

''We'll be offering tourist packages, the whole shebang, just like Las Vegas does,'' he told local dailies.

''It's a way of using the city's artistic heritage to boost tourism''.

The privilege of getting hitched where Juliet was famously wooed by Romeo in Shakespeare's play will not come cheap, however.

The 'Wed Me In Verona' marriage license alone will cost Verona residents 600 euros, people living within the city catchment area 700, European Union citizens 800 and non-EU couples 1,000 euros.

This compares to the 50 euros required for a civil marriage certificate in Italy. Mayor Flavio Tosi, who has courted controversy in the past with moves seen as anti-immigrant, stressed that there was no anti-foreigner bias at play.

''It costs extra because the administrative costs are higher,'' he said.

HOUSE REOPENED AFTER CLEAN-UP.

Juliet's House reopened a year ago after being scrubbed free of messages and bubble gum left by visitors to the star-crossed lover's shrine.

Officials were forced into the clean-up after a failed attempt to bring the site into the modern communications age.

A strict graffiti ban was issued and visitors urged to send their vows by e-mail and SMS to a huge computer display in the house's lobby.

To officials' dismay, the youngsters who flock to the site opted to stick to their felt markers and gum.

Verona makes much of the House - and the revenue it draws - despite historians' claims there is scant evidence it is the locale immortalised by the Bard.

The more poetic messages left here are often cited in foreign newspaper and magazine articles about trips to the home town of Shakespeare's famous couple.

The residence is believed to have once housed Juliet because it was the family home of the Cappello family, who, according to legend, were the Capulets of Shakespeare's play.

In fact the address is Via Cappello, Number 23.

Experts believe the real Juliet Capulet (Cappello) would have lived in the house in the 12th century, if she really existed.

The highlight of any visit to the home is Juliet's balcony, where visitors try to re-enact the famous ''Romeo, Romeo'' scene.

Apart from leaving love messages, there is also a ritual linked to the bronze statue of Juliet which stands in the courtyard.

Visitors to the house often caress the right breast of the statue as it's believed to bring good luck.

For more about travel in Verona and day trips to Venice, Padua, and Vicenza visit WebVisionItaly's Veneto channel.
photo: balcony after last year's clean-up