The return of the cruise ship, the MSC Orchestra, came just two months after the Italian government backed plans to ban the huge vessels definitively from the area around Venice’s city centre.
With the ship looming over Saint Mark’s Square on Saturday, activists from the No Grandi Navi (No Big Ships) movement took to boats to protest against the cruisers, which they say are eroding the foundations of the historic lagoon city.
The protesters were met with a rival rally from those in favour of the ships and their economic benefit to the city, as it begins to welcome back tourists after the turmoil caused by COVID-19.
“This ship gives us a lot of hope and confidence,” Marco Gorin, one of the 43 mooring partners told Italian news agency ANSA.
“It was a tough year from a working point of view, but more so from a psychological point of view.”
Police boats intervened to separate the two factions, according to ANSA, with the 92,400-tonne, 16-deck MSC Orchestra and its 650 passengers escorted on its way by four tug boats.
On March 31, the Italian government approved definitive measures to ban the giant cruise ships from the city’s historic area, including around Saint Mark’s Square, sanctioning €2.2 million to construct mooring points outside the lagoon.
The news, reported around the world, was hailed by Italian culture minister Dario Franceschini as “a fair decision that we have awaited for years”.
Franceschini referred to the ships as being “as tall as apartment blocks” and recalled that the move had been requested by the United Nations culture organisation UNESCO.
The government said the measure was taken to “protect a cultural and historical heritage that belongs not only to Italy but to the whole world”.
During the construction of the new mooring points, large passenger ships were to be stopped from docking or sailing near the historic centre, and would be diverted to the industrial port at Marghera, about 10 kilometres away on the mainland.
However, until infrastructure works are carried out, the only way for cruise ships to enter Venice is via the Giudecca canal.
It’s not first time protesters have come out to decry the presence of cruise ships.
Environmental demonstrators have long warned that the large waves caused by the cruise ships are eroding the foundations of Venice, which along with its lagoon, are a UNESCO heritage site.
The ongoing debate has received attention from all over the world.
On Tuesday, a slew of international artists – from Mick Jagger to Wes Anderson and Tilda Swinton – wrote an open letter to Italian President Sergio Mattarella, Prime Minister Draghi and the mayor of Venice slamming cruise ships in Venice.
They called for a “final stop” to visits by cruise ships as well as better management of tourist flows, protection of the lagoon ecosystem and limits on property speculation to protect the city’s “physical integrity but also cultural identity”.
The letter to the Italian government, organised by the Venetian Heritage Foundation, said the lagoon city risked being “swept away” by cruise ships.
In the meantime the MSC Orchestra is en route to Bari before making its way to the Greek islands of Mykonos and Corfu and Dubrovnik, Croatia.
