I love working with Women and Travel, and I love coming across stories such as that of Alex Hai – First Female Gondolier in Venice. I have just added her to our Women Travel website where we list accommodation, tours, retreats and local guides – mostly they are women, all over a special welcome in some way to women travelers.
Alex offers a special offer for independent single travelers: 70€ 60 min daytime tours – which is great for those of us who travel on her own. She is the only Gondolier to offer this
Lisa Gerard-Sharp, travel journalist writes:
Gondoliera Alex Hai, famous as “the first female gondolier,” will steer you through the beguiling backwaters of Venice. Expect the unexpected.
Alex revels in the underbelly of the city, not the crass face of the commercial city as presented by most gondoliers.
If you want stories and legends, she’ll weave them for you.- If you want romance, it’s round every slippery canal corner.
- If you want intrigue and gossip, then Alex is as earthy as a local boatman and can swear in Venetian dialect.
- But if you want to listen to the lagoon at night, in companionable silence, that’s equally seductive.Venice is a canvas for projecting your flimsiest poetic fantasies – and no one does it better than Alex.
I came to experience her gondola ride for travel articles, including for National Geographic Traveller, and left lightheaded. You will too. Be guided by her mercurial sensibility and go with the flow.
