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Overcrowded Venice Introduces 1st Payment Charge for Tourists

FILE PHOTO: A web app to pay the entrance fee for Venice is seen on a mobile phone in this illustration picture taken in the control room where monitors are used to check the number of tourists entering and leaving the city in Venice, Italy January 26, 2024. REUTERS/Guglielmo Mangiapane/Illustration/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: A web app to pay the entrance fee for Venice is seen on a mobile phone in this illustration picture taken in the control room where monitors are used to check the number of tourists entering and leaving the city in Venice, Italy January 26, 2024. REUTERS/Guglielmo Mangiapane/Illustration/File Photo
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Overcrowded Venice Introduces 1st Payment Charge for Tourists

FILE PHOTO: A web app to pay the entrance fee for Venice is seen on a mobile phone in this illustration picture taken in the control room where monitors are used to check the number of tourists entering and leaving the city in Venice, Italy January 26, 2024. REUTERS/Guglielmo Mangiapane/Illustration/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: A web app to pay the entrance fee for Venice is seen on a mobile phone in this illustration picture taken in the control room where monitors are used to check the number of tourists entering and leaving the city in Venice, Italy January 26, 2024. REUTERS/Guglielmo Mangiapane/Illustration/File Photo

Venice became the first city in the world on Thursday to introduce a payment system for tourists in an effort to thin the crowds that throng the canals during the peak holiday season.
Signs warning day-trippers about the new 5-euro ($5.35) charge were set up outside the train station and near an entry footbridge, telling visitors they had to pay before diving into Venice's narrow alleyways.
April 25 is a national holiday in Italy and is the first of 29 days this year when people must buy a ticket if they want to access the lagoon city from 8.30 a.m. to 4.30 p.m.
Reservations are meant to be made online but there is also a booth on hand for those who don't have smartphones.
Although there are no turnstiles at the city gateways to make sure people have a pass, inspectors will be making random checks and issue fines of between 50 and 300 euros to anyone who has failed to register.
"No one has ever done this before," Venice Mayor Luigi Brugnaro told reporters earlier this month. "We are not closing the city ... we are just trying to make it livable."
Some 20 million people visited Venice last year, a city official said, with roughly half of them staying overnight in hotels or holiday lets - an influx which dwarfs the resident population currently put at around 49,000.
People with hotel reservations and visitors aged under 14 do not need to pay the entry fee, but still need to register beforehand. Residents, students and workers are exempt.
Venice narrowly escaped being placed on UNESCO's "World Heritage in Danger" list last year partly because the UN body decided that the city was addressing concerns that its delicate ecosystem risked being overwhelmed by mass tourism.
Besides introducing the entry charge, the city has also banned large cruise ships from sailing into the Venetian lagoon and has announced new limits on the size of tourist groups.
"The phenomenon of mass tourism poses a challenge for all Europe's tourist cities," said Simone Venturini, who is responsible for tourism and social cohesion on the city council.
"But being smaller and more fragile, it is even more impacted by this phenomenon and is therefore taking action earlier than others to try to find solutions," he told Reuters.
Ticketing this year is in an experimental phase and Venturini said that in future Venice might start charging more at certain times of the year to look to discourage arrivals.

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Should You Stretch before Exercise? After? Never? Here’s What to Know

Philadelphia Eagles stretch as they get ready during practice at NFL football training camp, Thursday, July 25, 2024, in Philadelphia. (AP)
Philadelphia Eagles stretch as they get ready during practice at NFL football training camp, Thursday, July 25, 2024, in Philadelphia. (AP)
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Should You Stretch before Exercise? After? Never? Here’s What to Know

Philadelphia Eagles stretch as they get ready during practice at NFL football training camp, Thursday, July 25, 2024, in Philadelphia. (AP)
Philadelphia Eagles stretch as they get ready during practice at NFL football training camp, Thursday, July 25, 2024, in Philadelphia. (AP)

For many people of a certain age, high school gym class began with reaching for their toes. Then, over the years, we were told it was better to stretch after exercise.

It turns out, both those things can be true, but the differing advice has created some confusion.

Stretching can help make you more flexible, improve range of motion in your joints — and feel good. David Behm, who researches human kinetics at Memorial University of Newfoundland in St. John’s, Canada, offers this advice on when to stretch and how to do it safely:

Warm up first

It’s almost always good to stretch, but it’s better if you warm up first, said Behm, author of "The Science and Physiology of Flexibility and Stretching." He recommends a light aerobic activity such as jogging, walking or cycling for five or 10 minutes.

Follow that with some static stretching, the traditional way of reaching and holding a position (think back to that gym class). You can then do activity-specific dynamic stretching, in which you warm up the muscles with repetitive movements like leg lifts.

Behm says one minute is "the magic number" for how long to do static stretching per muscle group without fatigue.

Expand your definition of 'stretching'

Should you always stretch before exercising? If it's traditional stretching, not necessarily.

The better question, Behm says, is, "Should people increase their range of motion? Should people have better flexibility? And that is yes, because it helps prevent injuries. It helps with health. But you don’t have to stretch to achieve that."

Resistance training, for instance, can be an effective form of stretching, he said. Doing a chest press increases range of motion in your deltoids and pecs, whether with barbells, dumbbells or machines, so there is no need to stretch beforehand. Just make sure to start with a small amount of weight to warm up and then add more to train.

"You probably don’t have to do extra stretching unless you’re a gymnast, a figure skater, or even a golfer who needs a great range of motion through that swing," Behm said.

Nor do you need to stretch first if you’re going for a leisurely run. Simply start with a slow jog to warm up and then increase the pace.

Don't do it if it hurts

After exercise, "light stretching is OK, as long as you don't reach a point where you're feeling pain," Behm said. Since your muscles will be warm by that point, overdoing it makes you more likely to injure yourself.

Foam rollers can help with muscle recovery and have been shown to increase range of motion as well as stretching.

Do some static stretching before sports

If you’re playing a sport, Behm said, static stretching beforehand helps reduce muscle and tendon injury.

"If you’re going to do an explosive movement, change of direction, agility, sprint, any of these explosive activities that involve your muscles and tendons," he said, "you’re going to be stronger if you do static stretching."

People can especially get in trouble when they go back to a sport they used to play, whether it's tennis, surfing or any sort of team activity.

Also, stretch both sides equally. Lacking flexibility on one side also can lead to injury.

Sounds simple. Why all the confusion? Different studies over the years have either encouraged or discouraged stretching before exercise. Behm says that partly because some studies didn't reflect real-life conditions, or were designed with elite athletes in mind, not regular people.

"If you’re Usain Bolt, it makes a difference," said Behm. Not so much for the rest of us.