The huge amount of motorboats and Vaporettos were disappointing indeed but I kept in mind that this is not Neo-Venezia after all; there’s no faster alternative to using motorboats for transporting goods and people yet. I did keep imagining though how much fuel all of those engines would consume… Someday, the Umineko company and Woody-san might help us out with their Air-Bikes xD

Your info about that real Undine is highly interesting (and very detailed, impressive!), and it’s pretty shocking (for me as an ARIA fan at least) that the Gondola business is ruled by Machists… Not that I blame their tradition though, but perhaps in the future, when they will all know about ARIA (which I highly doubt though), would their mindset change? Haha, wishful thinking…

(I guess if they can make it to Mars, achieve Terraforming and create Neo-Venezia and all the things in and around it, I bet they will have something against smelly feet too XD)

It is a shame. Both dehonesting to the city and extremely damaging to the buildings and their wooden pole grid foundations. Those motorboats and vaporeti make huge swells.

Every year the early summer Voga(re) Longa is held as a rowing marathon in Venice. (It was not in the Aria anime, but it was featured in the Aqua manga by Ms. Amano.) The Voga Longa was started in 1974 to protest motorboats in Venice, but has since grown into a carnival of oarsmen.

I hope they can do something about motorboats soon. I think they should switch to electric power at least (batteries or fuel cells, like the Toyota Prius). The sulphuric acid mixed from sooty exhaust of engines and sea water mist eats the walls of historic buildings in Venice like termites.

As for lady gondoliers, there is only a single “undine” in Manhome’s Venice. She is Alexandra Hai from Germany and she has been fighting unsuccessfully for about 11 years (!) to get accepted. She was faulted four times on gondolier-for-hire exams and she is officially banished to shuttle only the guests of her two contract hotels, no scenery cruises. Receives a lot of harassment from the police and carabineri motorboat patrols. She wears pure white T-shirts and trousers, no roman toga and “moonwalker” boots of the Aria Co. variety.

(I always wonder what Akari, Alicia, Alice and Athena do about boot-induced foot odours. In the military it is truly terrible to unlace the boots after some half-day excercise. Himeya heels are more feminine!)

Anyhow back to manhome Venice business. There was another lady, from the Netherlands, who started with a different attack venue. She spent several years learning from squero masters about how to build a gondola and finally made one for herself. But as soon as she started sculling in the laguna, she was hated and insulted out of Venice, so she returned to near Rotterdam and rows there.

Otherwise, supposedly there is only one pure white “regular” gondola in the whole Venice and noone knows who owns it. This summer someone posted pictures of it at Is. St. Michele. Colorful racing gondolas of a lighter construction appear every year at the Regata ‘Storica event (first sunday of September), including white, yellow and even pink coloured ones! Some ladies participate there.

As for the “prisoner-looking” male gondoliers, it is a hardy job to move up to six people in a gondola with a single oar. Barrel chest for lung, heart pumping (row+sing), big arm muscles, strong legs, etc.

I am pretty sure Aria’s martian undines are cheating, as none of them except maybe Athena Glory look like anything near capable of propelling a loaded gondola. Probably their crafts modulate the artificially created “gnome” gravity so that it only applies to the inertial part, but not the weight part, or vice versa. That way it is 1/3rd as easy to move around.

(The fake gondolas at the Las Vegas Venetian hotel have two small electric motors hidden underwater. I consider that a criminally punishable fraud.)

P.S.: Thanks for the Himeya HQ photo. I always wondered if that was a real-life building.

I mean, I’m quite jealous. I’ve never even gone outside my country, and you guys went to Venice. Those pictures are great, especially the sunset! I can only assume that your experiences bordered on awesome and totally great.

Damn you rich bastards. ;_;

:D

of course, the gondoliers, which looked more like prisoners rather than… elegant and beautiful undines.

haha, so true…. so true xD. Another thing which surprised me was the amount of motor boats there buzzing their engines away, a shame really.

Really loving the sunset photos. Kind of regret that I went there in the morning instead of the evening now T__T

Looking forward to your day 2. I won’t get mine done until I get back which is in 2 weeks. So perhaps it is my turn to get jealous this time. j/ks

P.S - Sorry I couldn’t answer your offline message about himeya company xD I was too busy in Japan.