Postcard from... Venice

Not content with pinching our sunbeds in Magaluf and seizing hold of Europe’s export market, Germans have gone a step further by making off with one of Venice’s gondolas. The teutonic miscreants took the vessel last Friday night before being nabbed near a canal in the early hours by local police.

The couple, aged 23 and 24, took the gondola near the Danieli vaporetta (boat bus) station and got as far as the little island of San Giorgio after paddling in a roundabout route that took in St Mark’s Square and the Giudecca island. They also saved themselves the €90 (£71) fare. But after collapsing with fatigue, the odd and by that stage, ill-tempered couple were spotted by a policeman in a nearby vessel, who notified the police station. By the time officers found the pair, they had disembarked at St Giorgio, according to Corriere Della Sera. They reportedly told police officers: “That wasn’t us. We don’t know anything about the gondola. It’s always been here.” But after checking the facts, the officers returned to their hotel a few hours later to inform them they were under investigation for handling stolen property. The “borrowed” gondola is the latest in a series of examples, however, of tourists behaving badly in the lagoon city. Earlier this year videos emerged of visitors urinating in litter bins.