Glum news that the famed Rialto market in Venice is shutting down. Not enough merchants. Rivo altum, deep-water, was the reason the market was established in the first place, so ships could pull right up. The picture (taken some years back) shows the pescaria, fish market, but there were others: beccaria for meat, erbaria for produce, naranzaria for citrusm cascaria for dairy.
The trouble turns out to be tourism. The community of Venice is quite small, home to perhaps 30,000 people, But those giant cruise ships often deposit 100,000 day-trippers onto the city, and they don't buy groceries. A market stall that sold for over $100,000 in the 1990s now goes for a tenth of that, and fewer than a dozen fish mongers are left.
Ah, you say, it's their own fault. The city fathers should never have let those giant cruise ships into the harbor. Seemed like such a good idea at the time, one medium-size ship every so often. You're right. Actually, they've been banned from parking too close since the end of last year, but they're still lurking, and still sending their passengers.
What's sad is that I've been writing about Venice and its tourism dilemma for over a decade now, And it's not getting better.
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