Tourists take gondola on Venice joyride with unromantic results

IT MUST have seemed like a good idea at the time when two tourists in Venice embarked on a night-time adventure by stealing a gondola and taking it for a joyride along the narrow canals of the World Heritage city.

But it all went horribly wrong – the couple ended up soaking wet, freezing cold and being rescued by a police launch, with officers promptly charging them with theft.

The French couple hopped into a gondola tied up in Rio de San Severo, a canal near St Mark’s Square, in the small hours of Monday morning.

They found themselves in difficulty almost immediately – the 35ft-long craft are asymmetrical and notoriously hard to handle. Light drizzle turned to heavy rain and they realised they had no idea how to use the oar to propel the boat, bumping into canal banks and ramming other vessels. A local man spotted their hapless attempts to steer the gondola and called the police.

A launch was dispatched and located the 41-year-old man and his 29-yearold girlfriend in a canal near the church of Santa Maria Formosa, by which time they were soaked and shivering.

They were hauled aboard the launch and taken to the nearest police station, where they were charged with stealing the craft and with possession of a knife, which they had used to cut the gondola free of its moorings.

The owner will assess the damage done to the boat. A basic gondola costs about €20,000 (£18,000), but elaborate models can cost up to €50,000.