To Venice by sea

Venice was constructed for access from the sea. Arrival from the land, by the back door as Thomas Mann put it, is the price paid to the railway in the 19th century and to the automobile in the 20th. Today arriving from the sea is a privilege of the few who come there with their own boats and the many who come on cruise ships.
To keep its relationship with the sea intact, Venice has continually adapted the form of the city and its lagoon over the course of the centuries. The canals have been modifi ed many times and the areas of Rialto and St. Mark's and the banks of the Grand Canal and the Giudecca Canal have been designed and redesigned to handle maritime trade.
At the beginning of the 20th century, in order to keep its port facilities competitive, Venice started to move part of its cargo traffi c to Marghera and, since 2000, what had once been a commercial port - Marittima - has been turned into a modern passenger terminal.
The unique beauty of Venice and the shrewd management of the cruise sector have had an immediate effect: year after year Venice has been climbing the ratings. In 2012 it is vying for the position of top home port of the Mediterranean with Barcelona and is in ninth place worldwide.
Today the proceeds derived from the cruise industry are a decisive component of the city's economic base, complementary as well as an alternative to the tourism economy. The sustainability of the phenomenon remains a constraint that has been carefully evaluated in terms of the safety of navigation and containment of the environmental effects within acceptable and accepted limits.
With one exception: the growing size of cruise ships, which is requiring once again a redefi nition of the relationship between Venice and its port; an intelligent redefi nition that needs to see the "white ships" adapt to Venice and Venice fi nd the way to go on receiving them out of respect for its history.