Rome River judged too dirty for tourist cruises
Baku, May 15 (AZERTAC). TOURIST cruises along Rome`s Tiber River have been suspended indefinitely for the first time since they began a decade ago because the waterway is judged too dirty.
"Tourists and Rome residents were expecting navigation for the year to resume at Easter. But we didn`t open out of respect for them," said Mauro Pica Villa from "Rome Boats", the company in charge of all cruises on the river.
Making navigation even more difficult, Pica Villa said, is a 1906 law still in place that classifies the waters of the tiber as "maritime" and not "communal" property meaning Rome city hall is not responsible for the upkeep.
Former Rome mayor Walter Veltroni launched the river cruise services in 2003 and they were initially very successful, selling 40,000 tickets a year.
Pica Villa said it was a shame to be suspending the services, which included tours about the history of Rome`s bridges and romantic dinner cruises.
The Tiber is Italy`s third longest river and runs 400 kilometers from the hills of Tuscany to the port of Ostia on the Mediterranean.
Visitors to Rome this year won`t be able to cruise along the Tiber River, which weaves through the city, because it has become “strewn with rubbish,” according to a representative of Rome Boats, the company that controls the river tours.
In an interview with AFP, Rome Boats` Mauro Pica Villa said there would be no tours because the tour operators would be “ashamed” to show the Tiber in its current state. He described the embankments as “grey with pollution” and the trees that line the river as covered in plastic bags and other rubbish. The last time the Tiber was cleaned was in 2008, and the river suffers from bureaucratic idiosyncrasies that have shuffled the responsibility for its care away from the city government.
The Tiber is the third-longest river in Italy, rising in the Apennine Mountains in Emilia-Romagnaand flowing 406 kilometers (252 mi) through Umbria and Lazio to the Tyrrhenian Sea. It drains a basin estimated at 17,375 square kilometers (6,709 sq mi). The river has achieved lasting fame as the main watercourse of the city of Rome, founded on its eastern banks.
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