QUICK GETAWAY

Venice Residents Buy Island to Escape Tourists

The island will be converted into an urban garden for the city’s residents.

Venetians are getting creative when it comes to escaping tourists. An activist group of the city’s residents have successfully bid to take over part of the nearby island Poveglia in August with plans to convert it into a park. Poveglia per Tutti (Poveglia for Everyone) has been awarded a six year lease on the land after it challenged residents of Venice to help stump up the cash with a “€99 for 99 years” campaign. The campaign garnered more than 4,600 donors, but the group will pay only €1,000 a year for the lease. Poveglia has been abandoned since 1990 and was once a plague pit, but that hasn’t deterred Venetians determined to escape the 30 million tourists estimated to visit the city every year. Officials have in recent years banned cruise ships from docking in the city and introduced a €5 entry fee but that has done little to slow the tourism trade. Now, Venetians are looking to get away instead.