Ranch EntranceGated EntranceRanch Gates EntrancesGateway EntranceRanch EntryEntrance IdeaDriveway Entrance CountryFront GatewayProperty EntranceForwardLove this gate. I will have one at my ranch one day CLICK ON THE STORE NAME FOR MORETony Heaton will never forget his first gondola ride in Venice. “It was like being on a sailboat,” he says. “Moving through space in a very silent and beautiful way—the way it connects you to the water is magical. I’d never really processed that when I’d looked at gondolas before. I mean, they’re beautiful things, and I’ve got loads of photos of them, but being in one was really transportive.”If Heaton—a British sculptor who was awarded an OBE by the Queen in 2013 for services to the arts—found it particularly inspiring, it’s not just because of his day job. He’s a wheelchair user, and in the 18 years he’s been visiting the city, usually timed for the Venice Biennale, riding a gondola has never been a possibility. Until last year, that is, when two gondoliers decided to take matters into their own hands and launch the world’s first wheelchair-accessible gondola.“

We’d noticed disabled people who wanted to go for a ride many times,” Alessandro Dalla Pietà, a fourth-generation gondolier tells Condé Nast Traveler. “A few times we’d helped someone on by ourselves, but it was tricky and we had to manhandle them. Then one day we were just chatting between jobs, and we just decided we wanted to spread a bit of positivity. So we came up with the idea, and then we tried to work it out.”“Try” is the right word. It took Dalla Pietà and his colleague, Enrico Greifenberg, four years to bring the project to fruition. First they signed up two local architects and consulted with the Venice branch of a disability organization. Next, two local companies designed a jetty made entirely out of recycled materials and a platform elevator that loads a wheelchair, cantilevers it out over the water and lowers it into the gondola. The idea was viable, they realized; now they just needed the money to make it happen.The project came in at €120,000 ($130,000);

the Veneto regional authorities offered €50,000, and the owner of a hotel near Padua, 30 minutes away, pledged €20,000. Dalla Pietà and Greifenberg hoped crowd-funding would make up the rest, but it only raised €4000. Instead of giving up, they took out a bank loan and pressed ahead. Gondolas4all gave its first ride last April.It’s an astonishing story, perhaps all the more so because neither founder has wheelchair-using friends or family. 3dd curtains“We did it because we thought it was the right thing to do,” says Dalla Pietà, simply. poirot curtain dvd“For a wheelchair user, arriving in Venice can be like landing on the moon. shower curtain rods for neo-angle showers

We wanted to make a statement: That if we could make a gondola, of all things, accessible, you can make anything accessible. You just have to use your brain.”Sixty wheelchair users have used the Gondolas4all service so far, and word is spreading that the world’s most picturesquely inaccessible city has opened up a little. “So many of my guests have wanted to experience a gondola ride but weren’t able to,” says Marco Maggia, the man who donated €20,000. difference between eyelet and tab top curtainsMaggia lost his daughter, Eleanora, to spinal muscular atrophy; walmart pinch pleat drapeshis hotel, the Ermitage Bel Air, specializes in accessible tourism. ready made curtains heatonsVenice is best seen from the water, and Gondolas4all has opened up the city.”curtain and bedding outlet memphis tn

“They take you off the Grand Canal and round all the little canals and backstreets that you can’t get to in a wheelchair—places I’d never been.” Opening up the nooks and crannies is important, but doing it with dignity is crucial. “Our riders know they can do it safely, they won’t be manhandled, they don’t need a carer or a special gondola to do this—they can do it autonomously,” says Dalla Pietà, who put all 19 of his colleagues at the Piazzale Roma gondola station through training: Not just in elevator operation, but in dealing with physical and mental disabilities. “We’re well prepared,” he says. “There are 21 gondoliers in Venice all ready to welcome people with disabilities.” In the meantime, they’re still crowd-funding to pay off those loans—anyone wanting to donate or book a ride can do so through their website.Venice is accessible, insists Dalla Pietà—it just takes a lot of advance planning. But he’s hoping others will follow Gondolas4all’s lead.

For Heaton, the project is as much a symbol as a practical addition. “Venice is a tough city for a wheelchair user,” he says. “But this is a little chink in the curtain.”Liberty X are reforming - and we've got Kevin Simm to thank. Once upon a time - around 2002 - you couldn't turn on a radio without hearing the fivesome singing hits such as Just A Little. Well get ready for some deja vu as the group - made up of Kevin, Michelle Heaton, Tony Lundon,Kelli Young and Jessica Taylor - are getting back together. OK, so it's not the first time that the band have had a revival since they originally went their separate ways in 2007. But this time they're hoping to reach new heights after original member Kevin won The Voice 2016. Read more: Kevin Simm hints The Voice is easier to win than X Factor The talent show winner will even be in tow when the group perform at Birmingham Pride next month. Michelle Heaton told The Sun: "We have gigs in the pipeline and we're actually doing Birmingham Pride in a few weeks' time.

Kevin will be performing with us still. Read more: Kevin Simm admits his single will be a 'gamble' "I can see us doing a lot more with Kevin now." The news is a little out of the blue after Kevin recently revealed that he prefers being a solo act than performing as a group . Despite finding fame in the early noughties as one fifth of Liberty X, the 35-year-old confessed there were elements he wasn't keen on during his stints with the band. "I really didn't like all the dance routines," he admitted. "In interviews and things like that, you couldn't always be yourself. Every time you'd give an answer, it would have to be something that you had all agreed on beforehand. Read more: Who is Kevin Simm? The Voice winner profiled "I also didn't like having to wait for hours for the girls to get ready!" Kevin's solo career hasn't got off to the best start after his first single - titled All You Good Friends - charted at a disappointing number 24. However the singer has told his fans not to worry because it's just a 'stepping stone' to better things.