Big ships, more and more of us, from all over the world are choosing huge gleaming crew ships for our holidays.

Are they polluting and even destroying the cities they visit or regenerating their economies?

I'm Philip Dodd for the BBC World Service and I'm going to ask these questions from

the Gabon in Africa to Liverpool in England. going to

ask these questions from the Gabon in Africa to Liverpool in England to Venice in Italy.

As cruising has moved into the mainstream and begun to target the mass market,

the ships have become bigger and bigger.

Maritzio Cergel is a naval architect with Finn Cantieri based in Trieste, Italy, one of the largest shipbuilders in Europe.

The size of the vessel have increased during all the years.

In the old time when we start a 50,000 tonner is a very large vessel.

The biggest in the world was around 70,000 toners. Today the biggest one is 220 and the average size of the new building

order is around 160,000. So it's more than three times the larger one. the

60-000-so is more than three times the larger one. Can a small city such as Venice,

the cruise capital of Europe, cope with such ships

bigger than the Titanic? Only 150,000 people live there, but 20 million tourists

visit each year. And cruise ships can discord 6,000 people at a time into the city's winding streets.

Every Sunday there is a demonstration against the Grandi Navy, the big ships, with small boats

sailing close to the cruise liners as they leave Venice's lagoon. One of the long time anti-Big ship campaigners is Barbara

Warbert and Gilberti. She told me that the best way of seeing how monstrous these

ships are is to be on the water very near them.

We're on board one of the public transport boats, the line number two going from

Piazzale Rome on the bus station around to Tronketo which is

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