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We compared Birmingham canals' new e-boats to a gondola in Venice - and it could be cheaper to go to Italy


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We compared Birmingham canals' new e-boats to a gondola in Venice - and it could be cheaper to go to Italy - Birmingham Live (birminghammail.co.uk)

 

We compare the canal sights of Birmingham with Venice and discover it could be cheaper to fly to Italy than to sail to Ladywood and back

 

 

Birmingham has long claimed to have more miles of canal than Venice and now that GoBoat's e-boats have arrived there's no excuse for not enjoying the thrill of the open water and seeing the birthplace capital of the industrial revolution in a whole new way.

The only possible reason for not getting out there to pretend that Birmingham actually is Venice in disguise is the cost. And if it's too much, perhaps you would want to go to Venice for the real thing.

After all, two people can fly to Venice and back for less than the cost of hiring a GoBoat on a Birmingham canal for just two hours.

Courtesy of GoBoat, we recently tested a two-hour trip on one of its brand new electric boats which are moored at Waters Edge next to Brindleyplace. As you can read in our review in the link immediately below - or watch on our full-length FacebookLive coverage here - it's fair to say that we loved every minute. They really do make for a brilliant day out.

 

By taking the (recommended) two-hour option we were able to enjoy significant parts of the two main routes, one out to the island known as Port Loop (Venice has some 400 islands by the way) and the other part way towards The Vale site at the University of Birmingham, which is reached via Gas Street Basin and the back of the Mailbox / Cube at the start of the more tranquil Worcester and Birmingham Canal.

 

Of course, the financial cost of setting sail on a Birmingham GoBoat is nothing like as cheap as it used to be to hire an old-fashioned motor boat pumping out blue smoke on a park lake. But then the e-boat experience on the Birmingham Canal Navigations network is so much better. It's super smooth and pollution free, too.

And, as you can see in our photo story here, there are more visual similarities between Birmingham and Venice than you might think.

 

Our canals offer radically different environments to park lakes, with people on the towpaths taking a great interest in what you are up to. Fellow sailors on passing narrowboats all invariably cheerful given the fact they already know so much about the joy of using the waterways as a means of fully escaping the hustle, bustle and sometimes sheer hassle of the modern world.

The good news is that each GoBoat - made in Croatia out of recycled bottles - does have room for eight people to sit around a table made out of sustainable wood. This means you can take your own picnic for roughly the equivalent price of everyone dining out in a restaurant in Brindleyplace.

Brum v Venice - the price differentials

Of course, if there's only going to be two of you on board for a romantic Brummie proposal - say at the foot of the Utilita Arena if you first met there at a gig or in Gas Street Basin close to where ITV soap Crossroads and Cliff Richard's Take Me High movie were filmed - then the price per person might seem pretty steep depending on your disposable income.

The prices for hiring GoBoat are £95 for one hour, £135 for two hours or £175 for three hours. That means the cost for two people determined to go it alone for a romantic treat with a self-packed lunch of a bottle of Prosecco and Parma ham sandwiches garnished with thinly-sliced tomatoes and fresh Italian basil - would be £47.50, £67.50 or £87.50 per person.

 

So how much would it cost for a gondola ride on a canal next to the Adriatic coast? Well, they seat six so you can again share the romance.

But if you want to go out as a pair, each boat's official tariff of 80 euros (£68) works out at £34 per person for 30 minutes, with the price rising after 7pm to 100 euros (£85) - or £42.50 per person.

For extra time, it's another 40 euros (£34) for each additional 20 minutes or after 7pm it's an extra 50 euros (£42.60) per additional 20 minutes. Again those prices could be split six ways or just between the two of you.

So the choice is yours - £47.50 per person for the first hour on a GoBoat or the equivalent of £68 per hour per person for an hour on a gondola with someone else doing the donkey work of getting you from A to B.

Ah, you might say, but what about the cost of getting to Venice in the first place? Well, remarkably, Jet2 is currently advertising flights for less than £30 per person each way. So even if you just want to go there to see the gondolas in action from dry land, that means two people could fly there and back for less than £120. Put another way in the world of canal economics, that total would be £15 less than two hours on a GoBoat.

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3 hours ago, Jen-in-Wellies said:

You can't just go by price. What about the culture and beauty of Birmingham, compared with a dump like Venice?

not sure if you're kidding, but having been to both, Birmingham smelt less...... :)

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8 minutes ago, robtheplod said:

not sure if you're kidding, but having been to both, Birmingham smelt less...... :)

Plus Birmingham canals have long had an extensive, free to view public art collection, which Venice lacks. For clarity, the upper photo is from Birmingham, the lower is from Venice.

99_4ir.jpg.9c7821a64caa6f163a940bbb5a0f452b.jpg

Photograph taken by Chris Jones in September 2010 and was added to the database on Thursday the 5th of January, 2012. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike licence

1030px-Rialto_Gondoliers.jpg.7cae7425ff240a87ce85968177a16d52.jpg

By Saffron Blaze - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15374420

Edited by Jen-in-Wellies
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4 hours ago, Alan de Enfield said:

We compared Birmingham canals' new e-boats to a gondola in Venice - and it could be cheaper to go to Italy - Birmingham Live (birminghammail.co.uk)

 

We compare the canal sights of Birmingham with Venice and discover it could be cheaper to fly to Italy than to sail to Ladywood and back

 

 

Birmingham has long claimed to have more miles of canal than Venice and now that GoBoat's e-boats have arrived there's no excuse for not enjoying the thrill of the open water and seeing the birthplace capital of the industrial revolution in a whole new way.

The only possible reason for not getting out there to pretend that Birmingham actually is Venice in disguise is the cost. And if it's too much, perhaps you would want to go to Venice for the real thing.

After all, two people can fly to Venice and back for less than the cost of hiring a GoBoat on a Birmingham canal for just two hours.

Courtesy of GoBoat, we recently tested a two-hour trip on one of its brand new electric boats which are moored at Waters Edge next to Brindleyplace. As you can read in our review in the link immediately below - or watch on our full-length FacebookLive coverage here - it's fair to say that we loved every minute. They really do make for a brilliant day out.

 

By taking the (recommended) two-hour option we were able to enjoy significant parts of the two main routes, one out to the island known as Port Loop (Venice has some 400 islands by the way) and the other part way towards The Vale site at the University of Birmingham, which is reached via Gas Street Basin and the back of the Mailbox / Cube at the start of the more tranquil Worcester and Birmingham Canal.

 

Of course, the financial cost of setting sail on a Birmingham GoBoat is nothing like as cheap as it used to be to hire an old-fashioned motor boat pumping out blue smoke on a park lake. But then the e-boat experience on the Birmingham Canal Navigations network is so much better. It's super smooth and pollution free, too.

And, as you can see in our photo story here, there are more visual similarities between Birmingham and Venice than you might think.

 

Our canals offer radically different environments to park lakes, with people on the towpaths taking a great interest in what you are up to. Fellow sailors on passing narrowboats all invariably cheerful given the fact they already know so much about the joy of using the waterways as a means of fully escaping the hustle, bustle and sometimes sheer hassle of the modern world.

The good news is that each GoBoat - made in Croatia out of recycled bottles - does have room for eight people to sit around a table made out of sustainable wood. This means you can take your own picnic for roughly the equivalent price of everyone dining out in a restaurant in Brindleyplace.

Brum v Venice - the price differentials

Of course, if there's only going to be two of you on board for a romantic Brummie proposal - say at the foot of the Utilita Arena if you first met there at a gig or in Gas Street Basin close to where ITV soap Crossroads and Cliff Richard's Take Me High movie were filmed - then the price per person might seem pretty steep depending on your disposable income.

The prices for hiring GoBoat are £95 for one hour, £135 for two hours or £175 for three hours. That means the cost for two people determined to go it alone for a romantic treat with a self-packed lunch of a bottle of Prosecco and Parma ham sandwiches garnished with thinly-sliced tomatoes and fresh Italian basil - would be £47.50, £67.50 or £87.50 per person.

 

So how much would it cost for a gondola ride on a canal next to the Adriatic coast? Well, they seat six so you can again share the romance.

But if you want to go out as a pair, each boat's official tariff of 80 euros (£68) works out at £34 per person for 30 minutes, with the price rising after 7pm to 100 euros (£85) - or £42.50 per person.

For extra time, it's another 40 euros (£34) for each additional 20 minutes or after 7pm it's an extra 50 euros (£42.60) per additional 20 minutes. Again those prices could be split six ways or just between the two of you.

So the choice is yours - £47.50 per person for the first hour on a GoBoat or the equivalent of £68 per hour per person for an hour on a gondola with someone else doing the donkey work of getting you from A to B.

Ah, you might say, but what about the cost of getting to Venice in the first place? Well, remarkably, Jet2 is currently advertising flights for less than £30 per person each way. So even if you just want to go there to see the gondolas in action from dry land, that means two people could fly there and back for less than £120. Put another way in the world of canal economics, that total would be £15 less than two hours on a GoBoat.

Or you could hire a proper narrowboat for the whole day for less than 1 hour in a GoBoat.

image.png.eb54d54fd62193feca8b2f3b5706fd22.png

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1 hour ago, Jen-in-Wellies said:

Venice has cruise ships in the Grand Canal. Birmingham is protected from wide beam monstrosities by flights of narrow locks on all the approaches.

Apart from that thing that was/is promoting the Icknield Port Loop scheme.

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No protection, even narrow lock flights, are 100% effective. If I recall right, there were some carrying boats that were entirely confined to either the Wolverhampton, or Birmingham level that exceeded a narrow locks dimensions in both length and beam. They were built to do trips between two sites where there were no locks, or other restrictions to their movement, but couldn't go beyond, so there is history there.

You are unlikely to see one of these mooring at Cambrian Wharf, so Brum still beats Venice. Imagine how long it would take the passengers to empty all the cassette toilets in the Elsan!

960px-Oasis_of_the_Seas.jpg.ac620fb6bf870f927fa03fdebdb39355.jpg

By Baldwin040 - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=9383885

Edited by Jen-in-Wellies
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5 hours ago, Jen-in-Wellies said:

Advantages of the BCN over Venetian canals. Can any one think of more?

  • Any one can become a commercial boat skipper in Birmingham. Gondolier jobs are a closed shop, passed down in families.
  • The smell of sewage wafting over the Venice canals. The smell of skunk wafting over the Birmingham canals.
  • Global warming and sea level rise will doom Venice to sink below the waves. The Birmingham level is at 453 feet.
  • Sipping a very expensive coffee on St Mark's Square, overlooking the Grand Canal, compared with sipping a cheaper pint of beer in the Tap and Spile, overlooking Gas Street Basin.
  • Venice has the Campanile overlooking the Grand Canal. Birmingham has the Post Office Tower overlooking the Farmer's Bridge Flight.
  • Venice has cruise ships in the Grand Canal. Birmingham is protected from wide beam monstrosities by flights of narrow locks on all the approaches.
  • Venice is on the Adriatic, so sea life can get in to the canals. In Birmingham, sea life is safely segregated from the canals in the Sea Life Centre. No risk of your boat being pulled down to its doom by a kraken, or damaged in a dolphin collision.
  • Listening to the beautiful, melodious Brummie accent, compared with the jarring drone of Venician Italian.
  • Your Watermate key won't open any Elsan facility in Venice.
  • The artistic endevours of Birmingham's many painters are displayed in public on every canal side wall, or other vertical surface, not hidden away in galleries, churches and museums as in Venice.
  • Venice has no tunnels, or locks on their canals at all.
  • In high summer, on some parts of the BCN, you can go all day without seeing another boat on the move. In high summer, Venice is so overcrowded, the authorities want to limit the numbers allowed in.
  • Birmingham has never been a major naval power, or used its boats to carry fire and sword to other cities.
  • The overblown lines of a gondolier, versus the elegant lines of a narrowboat.
  • Venice might have the Bridge of Sighs over a canal, but Birmingham has Spaghetti Junction soaring over its canals.

Are you sure?

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43 minutes ago, Mike Todd said:

Are you sure?

I wondered too. Birmingham used to be big for gun making. The Proof House is proof of that. So there would have been lots of weapons coming out of Birmingham over the years, some by narrowboat. They were being transported by boat for sale to whoever, not in the hands of Birmingham's soldiers under orders from the Mayor of the Corporation of Birmingham to take the New Main Line to attack Wolverhampton. A bit different from the renaissance Venetian navy.

Edited by Jen-in-Wellies
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9 minutes ago, Jen-in-Wellies said:

I wondered too. Birmingham used to be big for gun making. The Proof House is proof of that. So there would have been lots of weapons coming out of Birmingham over the years, some by narrowboat. They were being transported by boat for sale to whoever, not in the hands of Birmingham's soldiers under orders from the Mayor of the Corporation of Birmingham to take the New Main Line to attack Wolverhampton. A bit different from the renaissance Venetian navy.

 

 

You've been watching Peaky Blinders haven't you !!!

 

Breaking into the BSA factory stealing thousands of guns and shipping them down the canal.

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