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Parisians have been marking the 100th anniversary of the day the Seine burst its banks and filled the city with torrents of muddy water.

Thousands of residents were forced from their homes and power was cut off for months.

To commemorate the 1910 flood, Paris’s Galerie des Bibliotheques is exhibiting a collection of photos, postcards and witness accounts. Among them are sepia shots of bowler-hatted men travelling piggyback, trousers hoisted up and knee-deep in water; people pulling up to Notre Dame cathedral in boats, and food being delivered by ladder to second-floor apartment windows.

But while present-day Parisians view the old scenes with a smile, there are warnings that it could happen again – and be ten times worse, despite various flood defence measures put in place over the years.

“The flood is unavoidable,” said Louis Hubert, director for the Paris region at France’s Ministry of Ecology and Sustainable Development. “What we can simply say is that we are almost certain to see new considerable floods, but we don’t know when.”

Paris museums such as the Louvre have a flood plan by which priceless objects are removed to a safe house in a town north-west of Paris – if they get enough warning.

by Andy Moreton

The exhibition at Galerie des Bibliotheques is on until March 28th. And if you’re planning a visit to France’s romantic and historic capital city, browse through Luxique’s unrivalled selection of luxury Paris hotels.

Back to a recurring theme – the efforts by Venice to cling on to its cultural heritage in the face of all kinds of 21st century threats.

The city council has now outlawed for two years any new takeaway outlets selling pizzas or kebabs in Venice’s historic centre. The Mayor, Massimo Cacciari, said the proliferation of such places was contributing to the ‘impoverishment’ of restaurants and affecting the quality of the architecture.

While Venice is making a specific stand (by including the traditionally Italian pizzeria), Italy is witnessing a national campaign against ethnic food restaurants, led by some conservative local authorities. Earlier this year, the city councils of Milan and the Tuscan town of Lucca restricted non-Italian food outlets.

The Italian Agriculture Minister, Luca Zaia, has applauded these local initiatives aimed at protecting Italy’s culinary traditions. “We stand for the safeguarding of our culture,” he said.

by Andy Moreton

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A mock funeral was staged in Venice on Saturday with grim-faced residents escorting a red coffin on a gondola through the famous canals.

The demonstration was designed to highlight Venice’s shrinking native population. The number has dropped from about 300,000 in the 1950s to some 60,000 today. The average age is 60. Newsweek magazine recently reported that by 2030 there might not be a single native Venetian left.

There are a number of reasons for the decline. Rents and property prices have become so expensive that many locals are priced out and forced to move to a cheaper location.

Rising water levels have also been a cause for concern, with many Venetians unwilling to buy a home that may not be usable in the future.

While the population has been dropping off, the number of tourists visiting Venice has been soaring every year – about 55,000 arrive each day. Venetian business owners used to charge higher prices to tourists, but are now charging those prices to locals, too, in the struggle to get by.

After travelling along the Grand Canal, the demonstrators left the coffin outside the town hall, hoping the gesture will publicise the plight of a city that’s been described as ‘a museum struggling to survive in a modern age’.

by Andy Moreton

It remains one of the most remarkable cities in the world and Luxique has a varied selection of the finest luxury hotels in Venice.

One of the most distinctive sights in Venice – among many others – is the thousands of wooden navigation poles that dot the lagoon.

They’re used as markers by boats and ferries to prevent them from running aground in treacherous sandbanks, and they’ve been a traditional part of the Venetian scenery for many years.

Now, though, the city authorities have raised something of a storm by proposing that the 100,000 or so wooden stakes be replaced by plastic poles made out of recycled waste. They say these would last much longer and cost less to maintain than their old, barnacle-clad timber equivalents.

“We have hundreds of wooden poles which are rotting away - there are entire forests of them,” said Mara Rumiz, the city official in charge of public works.

However, critics of the proposed move say that it would bring an end to centuries of heritage and that the plastic poles would be much less picturesque. One commented that visitors would have the impression of a plastic Venice, not dissimilar to the one which exists in Las Vegas.

The Daily Telegraph’s correspondent in Italy, Nick Squires, said:

“It is the latest chapter in the decades-old saga over how to reconcile the history and heritage of one of the world’s most beautiful cities with the practicalities of day-to-day life.”

by Andy Moreton

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Venice is again considering radical plans to ease the overcrowding in the city in the summer months.

One proposal being looked at is to ban day-trippers; visitors would have to have hotel reservations to get in. It’s estimated that about 20 million people travel to Venice every year and as many as half arrive and leave on the same day.

Enrico Mingardi, who’s in charge of public transport, said: “There’s a physical threshold above which we cannot go.” He said Venetians could no longer tolerate the discomforts of mass tourism.

The council is to have discussions with tourist organisations and residents’ groups to explore ideas.

The notion of setting a limit on the number of tourists entering Venice has been discussed on and off for the past 20 or 30 years. “It’s always proved controversial because it goes against the democratic principle that anyone should be able to come to Venice,” said a council spokesman.

by Andy Moreton, with Nick Squires in Rome

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A hundred years ago, the Venice Lido was one of Europe’s most glamorous playgrounds for movie stars and royalty, and there’s now going to be a bold attempt to recapture its glory days.

The Lido is an 11-mile strip of land dividing the Venice lagoon from the Adriatic. It comes alive once a year in September for the Film Festival, when it’s besieged by actors, journalists and paparazzi, but for the rest of the year it all goes quiet.

“The Lido has slowly turned residential and gone to sleep, covered in dust,” said Giovanni Gusso, President of the Lido’s municipal council.

Now, hundreds of millions of euros of private funding are being lined up to restore the area’s Art Deco and Art Nouveau gems. In addition, government money is being spent on a new terminal for the city’s vaporetti (water buses).

But (there always seems to be a ‘but’ in these planning developments) one aspect is meeting disapproval – and it concerns the plans to demolish a group of beach huts. These are not just any old huts – they were famously depicted in the iconic closing scene of Visconti’s 1971 film Death In Venice, starring Dirk Bogarde.

More than 2,000 people have signed a petition protesting at the plans to demolish those and the turn-of-the-century Bagni Alberoni pavilion at the south end of the Lido.

Stefano Bartoli, the owner of the Bagni Alberoni bathing establishment, said:

“If these plans go ahead, we will have to close, it’s that simple. It won’t be possible to stay open. And if we close, lots of jobs will be lost and the local community will die – so, too, will a little piece of history.”

by Andy Moreton

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Congratulations to Venice’s first woman gondolier – 23-year-old mother-of-two Giorgia Boscolo.

The business has been all-male for some 900 years but Ms Boscolo passed the rigorous course, which involved propelling and guiding the 35-foot long gondola, navigating the city’s winding waterways and predicting treacherous tides and currents. She had to undergo 400 hours of instruction.

The course was introduced in 2007 after centuries during which the trade was handed down from father to son. Two other female applicants failed to make the grade.

Ms Boscolo inherited her passion for navigating Venice’s canals from her gondolier father, Dante, when she was seven. “I’ve always loved gondolas, and unlike my three sisters I preferred to punt with my father instead of going out with my friends,” she said. “I’m immensely happy and proud but today my day starts like every other, taking the children to school.”

Ms Boscolo’s new qualification will enable her to make a decent living. The rate for an evening tour of Venice is 100 euros (£85 / $140 ) for 50 minutes, with each additional 20 minutes costing 50 euros (£42 / $70).

by Andy Moreton

Enjoy that romantic gondola ride and let Luxique help you choose a luxury hotel in Venice.

As surveys go, this one is pretty gross. Our friends at Tripadvisor.com have come up with a top five tourist attractions that could be bad for your health as they’re so germ-ridden. Here they are in reverse order:

At number 5 is the forecourt of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, where celebrities leave their hand- and footprints for posterity. Apparently, it’s covered in grime from the countless visitors who see if their hands and feet match those of the stars.

St Mark’s is a beautiful square in Venice, but it’s always suffered from a surfeit of hungry pigeons and the mess they leave behind. That brings it in at number 4.

At number 3 is Oscar Wilde’s tomb in Paris. People clearly like to kiss it, because it’s covered with lipstick prints. Yuk!

A wall outside Market Theatre in Seattle was placed runner-up in the survey. Since 1990, tens of thousands of people have stuck their unwanted chewing gum to the wall, turning it into a tourist attraction. The display was started by people waiting in line to visit the theatre. The wall has been scraped clean twice but is still covered with gum, some moulded into shapes and faces.

But the ‘favourite’ tourist attraction for picking up germs is the Blarney Stone at Blarney Castle near Cork in the Irish Republic. More than 400,000 tourists a year literally bend over backwards to kiss the Stone, as legend has it that it will give you the gift of eloquent speech.

by Andy Moreton

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I wrote recently about how movie backdrops can do wonders for tourism – think The Third Man (Vienna), Don’t Look Now (Venice) and any number of Woody Allen films (New York).

Now, Washington DC is looking for a boost in visitor numbers with the release of the Night At The Museum sequel. This one has the subtitle Battle of The Smithsonian and it’s set in that prestigious museum and research centre, based primarily in DC.

Like its predecessor from three years ago – that one was set in New York’s Museum of Natural History - the action of the film follows night guard Larry Daley (Ben Stiller) whose job is hampered by the exhibits coming to life after dark.

And there are many exhibits to keep an eye on at the Smithsonian, with more than 136 million items in its collections. These include the Lockheed Vega plane belonging to aviator Amelia Earhart (played in the film by Amy Adams). You might also catch Teddy Roosevelt, Al Capone, Custer, Ivan The Terrible and Attila The Hun.

There’s general agreement in Washington that the release of the movie is good news for the city. “Often times we hear that parents have a civic duty to bring their families to D.C. for a vacation,” said Victoria Isley of the tourism bureau Destination DC. “But we believe Night at the Museum 2 will really help kids inspire visits themselves.”

by Andy Moreton

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No sooner had I told you about the controversial Coca Cola proposal in Venice (see article last week), than the Mayor has backtracked.

Massimo Cacciari said the city was now opening up to other sponsors by starting a tendering process. “A call for offers is the most transparent procedure in the world,” he said.

The climbdown followed protests from critics who accused him of selling out to commercial interests. Others said the Coca Cola deal – at 2.1 million euros (£1.8 million / $2.7 million) – would not have brought enough financial benefit to the cash-strapped city.

The defiant Mayor issued a challenge to them: “All those who publicly said they would have made more advantageous offers than Coca-Cola will now have the possibility to prove it,” he said.

by Andy Moreton

Browse Luxique’s selection of the finest luxury hotels in Venice.