Venice to crack down on lush gondoliers
THE famous gondoliers of Venice may be subject to alcohol and drug testing as city authorities respond to complaints about drunken antics on the canals.
According to The Telegraph, the possibility was raised at a council meeting following the recent “hazing” of an aspiring “ganser” — a gondolier’s assistant — whom a group of reportedly drunk gondoliers forced to strip and jump naked into the Grand Canal. Councillors said those involved should have their licences revoked immediately.
The city’s boatmen are seemingly gaining a reputation for unruly behaviour and Nicola Falconi, president of the gondoliers’ association, has apparently paddled the extra mile by suggesting that gondoliers undergo drug and alcohol testing.
Whether or not city officials are overreacting remains to be seen. One reader, commenting on the story, said: “It’s about time they brought in some laws. People are dying every day in gondolarelated accidents.” Another remarked that, given the fees gondoliers charge for a ride, it was no surprise they were “p****d as farts or stoned out of their heads”.
FREE WI-FI AT TSOGO SUN HOTELS
FOR tech-heads and those who like to stay connected when they travel, Tsogo Sun Hotels is offering free wi-fi to its guests.
The hotel group has installed free, high speed wireless internet in all its hotels, with varying daily data limits per room. The daily caps are 750MB per room per day at Tsogo Sun’s Deluxe hotels, 500MB at Southern Sun hotels, 350MB in Garden Court hotels, and 250MB in StayEasy hotels. Users may have no more than three devices per room.
The group says its guests are assured of uninterrupted wireless broadband access throughout its hotels. For more information visit www.tsogosun.com.
SUPERJUMBO JOINS BA
BRITISH AIRWAYS has joined the superjumbo era with the arrival at London’s Heathrow Airport of the first of 12 Airbus A380 doubledeckers that the carrier has ordered for its fleet.
The giant aircraft will make its first commercial flight for the airline when it departs for Los Angeles on September 24, followed by its first flight to Hong Kong on October 22. The last of the carrier’s A380 fleet are due in service in 2016.
AIR MILES FOR PETS
DOGS and cats that take domestic flights with Virgin Australia can now collect air miles, which their owners can redeem on future air tickets, The Telegraph reports.
The conditions of the frequent-flier programme for animals — Australia’s first — are that the pets will still fly in the hold but can earn their humans a minimum of 300 points per flight.
Virgin Australia flies about 30 000 pets around the country each year.
The scheme joins Virgin Atlantic’s Flying Paws air-miles offering, where the animals also get a special “pet pack”, which contains a T-shirt and a “sparkly dog tag” for dogs and a collar tag and a toy mouse for cats.
NO MORE ‘BUMS ON WATS’
A NEW guide on where to watch the sunset at the fabled Angkor temple complex in Cambodia aims to relieve the pressure on the temples by directing visitors away from the few spots that are overrun with tourists. The guide — a collaboration between Australia and the Cambodian government — will offer tourists recommendations for catching the sunset at some 34 places in the 400km complex. The guide, which can be seen at
www.angkorsunsets.com, lets visitors decide how far they want to walk from the main gate and even what kind of crowd they are likely to share their sunset experience with.