As the sight of gleaming white passenger ships dwarfing the palaces and churches of the World Heritage-listed city becomes ever more common, there are growing calls for restrictions on where they are allowed to dock.

Giorgio Orsoni, the mayor of Venice, is to meet the head of the city's port authority, Paolo Costa, on Wednesday to discuss the problem.

"The problem of these juggernauts of the sea needs to be confronted," he told Corriere della Sera newspaper.

He said cruise ships could be transferred to Porto Marghera, on the mainland, in order to minimise their environmental and aesthetic impact on Venice.

The proposal has the backing of Corrado Clini, Italy's new environment minister, who is a member of the recently-installed technocrat government led by Prime Minister Mario Monti.

Environmentalists and heritage groups have long pointed out that as cruise ships plough through the shallow Venetian lagoon, their powerful wake and undertow damages the fragile canal banks, wooden piles and mud banks on which the city rests.

There has been a huge increase in the number of cruise ships visiting 'La Serenissima', as Venice is known, from 200 in 2000 to 510 in 2007.

Last year 1.6 million tourists arrived in Venice by cruise ship, a more than fourfold increase since 1997.

Venice's cruise ship terminal was the 10th busiest in Europe but is now the fourth most popular.

The biggest ships can be nearly 1,000ft long and 16 decks tall, capable of carrying almost 4,000 passengers.

Arrigo Cipriani, the owner of the famous Harry's Bar on the Grand Canal, said he would like to see every cruise ship passenger charged 50 euros (£42) to set foot in Venice.

"If these people are prepared to pay 1,500 euros for a holiday, what's another 50 euros for a day trip to Venice?" he said.

Having sat and watched the water traffic and travelled through the canals many times on the vaporettos etc - I have often wondered exactly how much more damage a cruise ship really does. There are numerous speedboats zipping about every where and the wash they create is greater than a passing ship. In the small canals the every day ferries and speedboats must be far more damaging, but do not have the undertow larger vessels have.

I have been to Venice only twice in my life. Much harder for me to visit since Australia is so far away and if in Italy, I'll be in Rome most of the time or going to Tuscany and Abruzzo. Venice is undoubtedly a great experience from a cruise ship. Had the opportunity in 2002.

What is the solution? Porto Marghera? An industrial town with petrochemical plant, etc., and Fincantieri shipyard? Plain and simply ugly. Venice would soon lose its appeal. The whole point of Venice is as described by Pam.

A compromise? Maybe they should look at building facilities at the Lido. It would probably be very expensive and not sure whether the Italian government would allocate or spend money now in a financial crisis. The other thing is it won't be scenic and passengers would have to take a vaporetto or water taxi to and from Lido.

Another solution is to limit the number of ships or their sizes. No more VOYAGER of the SEAS et al, instead only MSC LIRICA-type medium-sized vessels or smaller. Just my thoughts.

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Originally posted by bulbousbow:

Another solution is to limit the number of ships or their sizes. No more VOYAGER of the SEAS et al, instead only MSC LIRICA-type medium-sized vessels or smaller. Just my thoughts.

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Cheers

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Originally posted by desirod7:

I would say the R-Ships

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Originally posted by Ernst:

They are too large to comply with the regulations that are now in place. Let's not forget that the R-ships are finally not that small - they just appear to be small because mainstream cruise ships became even larger during the past years.

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Agreed, Here is he Regatta in Key West