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Venice is a notoriously pricey city, and the internet is full of articles dishing out money-saving advice and budgeting hacks for visitors.
Recently, travel influencers have become wise to what they are calling a low-cost dupe for a gondola ride. This classic Venice experience will currently cost you €90 for 30 minutes during the daytime.
At points along the Grand Canal, however, there are stations where you can board boats designed like wider, longer gondolas.
These ‘traghetti’ ferry passengers over to the opposite side of the waterway - a useful service considering there are only four bridges that cross the canal.
Costing only €2 per journey, they’ve attracted tourists looking for the gondola experience without the price tag. So much so that there are now lengthy queues for the ferries.
The trend has frustrated residents, for whom the service is an essential addition to the public vaporetto lines.
Some say the traghetti should be made more expensive for those using them as entertainment, while others propose removing stations from Google Maps altogether.
The outrage comes as hundreds of thousands of visitors are about to descend on the city for the Venice Film Festival, potentially straining the limited service even further.
Ferry services ‘should be free for residents’
At the station of San Tomà, the traghetto ferries passengers across the Grand Canal at a strategic point roughly halfway between the Rialto and the Accademia bridge.
A few years ago, the service was quiet and the majority of users were residents.
But since the ferries began to be widely shared on social media and incorporated into Google Maps’ directions, a queue now snakes down the canal-side pavement leading to the stop.
There is already a higher fee for non-residents, who pay €2 instead of €0.70. But some locals are pushing for more distinct pricing.
"We try to make tourists understand that Venetians come first because the service is designed for residents, but it's not easy; many don't understand or are in a hurry," Maurizio Galli, who runs another service at Santa Maria del Giglio, told local media.
“It should be made free for Venetian residents and increased for those who use it without necessity."
Councillors propose removing ferry stations from Google Maps
Cecilia Tonon, head of the city council group Venezia è Nostra, says she has been asking authorities to address the issue of overcrowding at ferry stations for years.
While the vaporetti waterbus stations have two separate entry points for residents and non-residents, giving the former priority, there isn’t space at the ferry stations for a similar system.
Instead, Tonon believes a solution could be to remove the ferry stations from Google Maps altogether.
Last year, Barcelona used this tactic, removing the 116 bus line, which stops at Antoni Gaudí’s Park Güell, from Google and Apple maps to curb overcrowding.
However, the gondoliers themselves are not fully on board with the idea, concerned that it would be detrimental to their work.
With a dwindling number of residents in Venice, non-resident passengers are key earners.
But they emphasise that tourists should be using the traghetti when necessary as a ferry service and not as a cheaper alternative to a gondola.
"Anyone who passes off a gondola ride as a ferry should be fined," says head traghetto gondolier Galli.