CONSTRUCTION of Barcelona’s Sagrada Familia may have started 137 years ago, but the emblematic basilica only got a building permit on Friday.

The Spanish seaside city council awarded the licence to a committee in charge of finishing construction of the Catholic temple for 4.6 million euros (Bt162 million), said Janet Sanz, who’s in charge of urban planning.

In a quirk of history, authorities only discovered in 2016 that the building that draws millions of visitors every year had never had planning permission since construction began in 1882.

Sanz said the council had finally managed to “resolve a historical anomaly in the city – that an emblematic monument like the Sagrada Familia didn’t have a building permit, that it was being constructed illegally.”

Realising its tardiness, Barcelona City Council awarded a license to complete construction of the Catholic shrine for 4.6 million euros. 

According to the committee in charge of finishing construction of the not-yet-completed basilica, designer Antoni Gaudi had asked the town hall of Sant Marti, a village now absorbed into Barcelona, for a building permit in 1885 but never got an answer.

Some 137 years later, it is finally legal.

The new building permit states that the basilica will finally be finished in 2026, with a maximum height of 172 metres and a budget of 374 million euros.

Designed by Gaudi, a famous Catalan architect also known for the Park Guell, another tourist magnet in Barcelona, the Sagrada Familia was named a Unesco World Heritage site in 2005.

Construction, financed solely by donations and entrance tickets, is due to conclude in 2026, coinciding with the 100th anniversary of the death of Gaudi, who was run over by a tram.

The basilica is Barcelona’s most visited monument, with 4.5 million people in 2017, and one of the main tourist landmarks of the country.

“BIG WAVE incoming, use your legs!” shouts Gabriella Lazzari, as her laughing students try out their new gondoleering skills in the sunshine of Venice’s lagoon.

Lazzari is one of about 20 women who teach tourists from around the world how to row standing up, Venetian style, in batela coda di gambero – shrimp-tailed wooden boats.

“We take them out to the lagoon so they can do the gondoleering part without crashing into everybody,” quips Jane Caporal, who founded the Row Venice organisation more than eight years ago in a bid to save the voga alla veneta style of rowing.

“Obviously Venice is motorised now, so people don’t row around in their little boats anymore.”

“The idea is to save the tradition, not just the actual rowing but everything – the boat building, the oar making, the forcola [oar rowlock] making – crafts that have been going for centuries and centuries,” Caporal said.

Leading the lessons is Gabriella Lazzari, left, a member of Row Venice, a nonprofit organisation of passionate women and expert vogatrici (rowers). 

Yezi Jin, an accountant back home, shrieks in delight as she drives the blade into the water and propels the boat forwards, far from the peaceful canals of Italy’s floating city, in the vast open waters where vaporetto waterbuses sail back and forth.

“It’s hard work, my back’s aching, but it’s great fun!” says the 32-year old from Portland in the United States as her husband, gripping his own oar tightly, tries valiantly to match her pace.

“We see all the islands here. It’s very different from the Rialto Bridge or being in the crowds,” Jin adds.

Most of the women who teach voga also race professionally, and Row Venice sponsors them.

Caporal sees it as a way of attempting to level the playing field in a sport and profession dominated by men.

There is currently only one female gondolier in the whole city. She has had to fight tooth and claw for her share of the 20 million tourists who visit the Serenissima each year, Caporal says.

“The number of people certified as gondoliers is controlled by the gondoliers’ association. It’s a tightly closed shop. With Row Venice we’ve carved out a space for women to work too.”

The British-born Australian, who has lived in Venice for 30 years, picked the batela – a traditional work-boat now out of production – because it is more stable than the asymmetrical gondola and easier to manoeuvre.

“I came across one that was sold to me by a rowing club – it had been out of use for years. It was made by a master craftsman who had seen this kind of boat as a boy and remembered it,” she says.

Britishborn Australian Jane Caporal founded Row Venice more than eight years ago in a bid to save the voga alla veneta style of rowing. /AFP

The former stock analyst fell in love with it and was ready to shell out 14,000 euros (Bt437,000) for a replica to be made.

But the master craftsman had died. With no one left alive who knew how to make them, the boat builders had to get the plans from the city’s naval history museum.

“It’s a pleasure to enable tourists to live Venice by water and explain the pollution and high-water problems,” says Lazzari, in reference to the damage that cruise ships cause to the fragile ecosystem and floods that leave Saint Mark’s Square underwater.

Just a week ago a massive cruise ship lost control, crashing into the wharf and sparking fresh controversy over the damage the huge vessels cause to the city.

“I tell them about the types of boat there used to be, like the mascareta, so-called because it was used by masked ‘working women’, and the gondolas, which were the taxis of the rich,” Lazzari says.

The doges of Venice, the republic’s rulers until the 18th century, boasted golden, two-deck ships that were used yearly in a “Marriage of the Sea” ceremony, which symbolically wedded Venice to the water.

Row Venice pays tribute to the carnival city’s heyday by sponsoring parties held on boats in the lagoon on summer nights.

By day, its craft glide peacefully past ducks diving for crabs and disused boatyards transformed into canal-side gardens.

“It was a dream come true,” says Alice Hendricks, 71, her eyes sparkling as she gets out of the batela after her first lesson.

“It was very challenging. It looks so easy when you watch the gondolieri doing it, but after a few tries you kind of get a feeling for it. It’s a joy.”

The airline’s executive vice president-commerical Wiwat Piyawiroj, Commercial, said the increase was being introduced to cope with demand by both Japanese and Thai passengers.

THAI’s promotional fare roundtrip on flight TG686 with return on TG687 or TG649 will go fro Bt14,420 per person. For those traveling in a group of four people or more, the price is Bt13,670 per person (taxes and surcharge fees are included).

THAI operates flights to Fukuoka with Airbus A330-300 aircraft, equipped with 36 seats in Royal Silk Class and 263 seats in Economy Class. The flight departs from Bangkok at 00.50am and from Fukuoka at 11.35am for daily flights and departing Bangkok at 9.50am and from Fukuoka at 6.20pm for the additional Monday, Thursday and Saturday flights.

STREETCARS DESIGNED to look like characters from the British animated series “Chuggington,” which depicts the doings of anthropomorphic trains, are roaming the streets of Okayama.

Two cars that look like the Wilson and Brewster characters in the popular series have been used in the Okaden Chuggington attraction since it began service in March.

The streetcars bring cheer to the city’s residents, travelling the same roads as regular automobiles every day except Tuesdays.

“We wanted to turn the entire town into an amusement park,” says a representative of Okayama Electric Tramway Co., the Naka Ward-based company that has operated streetcars in the city since 1912.

The interiors of the special streetcars were designed with the help of Eiji Mitooka.

The company obtained permission from the British company that owns the rights to the series and spent about 500 million yen (about Bt145 million) creating the two cars.

“The streetcars are meant to be ridden, not just used to get around,” the Okayama Electric Tramway representative adds. “We want to bring joy to the city and inspire the dreams of children.”

Eiji Mitooka, designer of many train cars including the Seven Stars in Kyushu, is an

Okayama native who was involved in creating the interiors of the cars.

Shoes are not allowed on board so children can play on the floors. The streetcars can carry 17 adults and 17 children.

The two cars are joined together to travel a 7.35-kilometre route that takes about one hour to complete. During the ride, “navigators” are on board to serve as guides and there are games to play.

There are four rides per day on weekdays and five per day on weekends and holidays, though the schedule is set to change in July.

Tickets – which include entry to the Okaden Museum, a memento and other items – cost 3,400 yen apiece for adults and 1,900 yen for children on weekdays. Prices are 100 yen higher on weekends and holidays. The museum includes Mitooka’s works and Plarail model Chuggington trains among its exhibits.

Registration with the Okaden Chuggington fan club on the Okayama Electric Tramway website is required to make reservations.

In mid-May, Mai Iida, a 29-year-old from Fukuyama, Hiroshima Prefecture, rode the streetcar in a party of four with her two-year-old son.

“We’ve been waiting for this day ever since we made the reservation a month ago,” she says. “It was a really fun experience. The quiz they did on board was also great.”