“Alexandra Hai is the first woman with the right to operate a gondola in Venice, but only for one hotel’s guests.”

That’s the caption to a photo accompanying this article. Here are the first few sentences:

For more than a thousand years, Venice has had gondolas but never a female gondolier. But now there is Alexandra Hai.

After a decade of struggle, Ms. Hai has won the right to be a gondolier : sort of. A court recently allowed her to paddle around the canals of Venice, but only for the residents of one of the city’s hotels.

Read the whole article here.