Gondoliers in Venice « Euro Weekly Information – CSN

Venice Metropolis Council is asking for candidates for intense coaching periods to change into gondoliers. The coaching course contains boat dealing with, language classes, and gondolier principle courses.

The picture of the striped-shirted, straw-hatted gondoliers who grace the town’s canals is synonymous with Venice. Gondoliers have deftly rowed their manner by means of the town’s slender canals for hundreds of years. Now, the town is trying to find new candidates to make sure the continuation of the much-loved Venetian occupation. 

Gondolier Job Necessities

To use for the job of gondolier, candidates should be over 18, have not less than high-school degree schooling, know methods to swim, and be in possession of a medical certificates that exhibits their “wholesome and sturdy structure”. Candidates should additionally have the ability to row, or not less than present potential as a reliable rower.

Candidates Should Go Via a Rigorous Coaching Course of

Profitable candidates should then undergo an intense coaching interval. This contains 30 hours of principle classes. This entails studying the “freeway code” that governs the waterways. Candidates shall be given English and French classes, and be taught concerning the historical past, artwork, and tradition of Venice. A mere 10 hours are then allotted for sensible coaching underneath the eager eye of a grasp gondolier. 

Solely 433 Gondoliers Stay in Venice

Regardless of Venice’s reliance on gondolas for over a century, the occupation has modified rather a lot since its previous glory days. For a lot of centuries, the gondola was the town’s major type of transport. By the sixteenth century, it’s estimated that 10,000 gondolas traversed Venice’s canals. At this time although, solely 433 gondoliers stay. Of those, solely 14 are girls.  

Gondoliers Have to be Multilingual

Venice acquired an estimated 5.5 million tourists in 2023. That is regardless of efforts from the town council to curb the inflow of vacationers by imposing a vacationer entry tax. The fact of the modern-day gondolier is that they serve vacationers from each nation. Nonetheless, a working data of English and Spanish isn’t essentially sufficient. 

In an incident that went viral in 2023, Chinese language vacationers, who didn’t perceive (or maybe didn’t hearken to) the gondolier’s directions to sit down down, knocked the vessel off stability. Inevitably, all its occupants  ended up within the canal. The answer? Trendy gondoliers should even be ready to be taught key phrases in non-European languages to keep away from such incidents once more.

Gondoliers Proceed a Centuries-Lengthy Custom

Profitable candidates to the course, which prices greater than €1,000, will make sure the continuation of Venice’s most iconic occupation. The large demand for the gondolier course means neither Venice- nor we- want to fret concerning the occupation dying out any time quickly.