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Adriatica
In 1936, the fascist dictatorship of Italy decided to nationalize the shipping
industry, and established four bigger companies each assigned to a different
city and with different services: the Italia di Navigazione,
known also as Italian Line, based in Genoa, for transatlantic lines, the Tirrenia di Navigazione of Naples,
linking Italian mainland with bigger islands and western Mediterranean, the
Lloyd Triestino at Trieste, for the services to the Indian Ocean, and finally
the Adriatica di Navigazione
of Venice, born after the merger of San Marco shipping of Venice, Puglia
Shipping of Bari, and other smaller companies of Rijeka, Zadar and Ancona. The
routes planned for this company were the connections to Italian ports of Dalmatian
coast, the Dodecanese islands, Jugoslavia, Albania,
Greece and East Mediterranean ports. After the end of Second World War, Adriatica lost many domestic connections, maintaining only
the Tremiti Islands link, and concentrated itself in
cruising to Eastern Mediterranean sea, plus some other
commercial links to Northern Europe. In 1961, Adriatica
established, in collaboration with Hellenic Mediterranean Lines of Greece, the
first ro/ro connection
between Brindisi and Patras via Corfu and Igoumenitsa,
deploying the “Appia”. During the Seventies, Adriatica planned new investments for her services, taking
over the ro/pax vessels of
Trans Tirreno for new links to the Eastern
Mediterranean, plus ordering two new ro/pax at Orlando Yards of Leghorn, but the political situation
in Middle East countries led the company to change its plans and charter out
the vessels, rather than investing in new routes to Greece. At the beginning of
Eighties, Adriatica took over also Linee Marittime dell’Adriatico and their network to Jugoslavia,
maintaining also the Brindisi – Greece service, no longer in collaboration with
HML, plus the long cruise-ferry services from Venice and Bari to Piraeus,
Heraklion and Alexandria, Egypt. At the end of Eighties, Adriatica
decided to renew its Jugoslavia fleet by ordering
three brand-new tailor made ferries for these routes, but this also proved to
be a wrong investment, as long as also this time the political situation fell down
and the civil war forced again Adriatica to change
its plans and redeploy the three ferries on Greek routes. After the end of
dictatorship in Albania, Adriatica opened regular
ferry services to Durres from Trieste, Ancona and Bari with the older tonnage, maintaining
also the long service to Crete and Egypt until 1994. That year, Adriatica started a “motorways of the seas” project from
Ravenna to Catania, using the newly-delivered ro-paxes “Espresso Catania” and “Espresso Ravenna”; services
to Croatia, sailing from Ancona to Split and from Bari to Dubrovnik, were also
reopened. In the meantime, the competition on Italy – Greece routes grew up, and
Adriatica, which wasn’t able to answer this
competition with their tonnage, reduced its Greek services to two ships by
cutting the Brindisi – Corfu – Igoumenitsa daily
service in 1996, and remaining with a one-ship service in 1998, serving the
Brindisi – Corfu – Igoumenitsa – Patras line on
alternate days, connecting the Apulian Port to the Achaia port in 19 hours,
nearly the same time required to Superfast Ferries’s
vessels for connecting Patras with Ancona, some 600 kilometres north of
Brindisi. In 1999, Adriatica, which was totally
without new investments from the State (which ordered some 16 new ferries for Tirrenia from 1994 to 2005), went on to close her services by
cutting the Trieste – Durres line and, in 2003, the Ancona- Durres line; in
2001, anyway, the company took over two cargo services of Tirrenia,
the Leghorn – Catania and the Genoa – Termini Imerese
line. In 2004, the company was closed, incorporated into Tirrenia,
which took over all the cargo services and the remaining passenger lines, the
Ancona – Split line, the Bari – Durres line and the Tremiti
islands line.
Adriatica – Funnel of “Campania”, Genoa,
13/11/05
Adriatica – Funnel of “Egitto
Express”, Photo © Erald Spahiu
Adriatica – Funnel of “Espresso Venezia”,
Photo © Erald Spahiu
Adriatica – Funnel of “Palladio”, Ancona, 04/10/03