The crippled Costa Concordia cruise ship reached the end of its final voyage.

Refloated by salvage crews earlier this month, the rusting hulk docked at Voltri port in the Italian city of Genoa early Sunday.

The cruise ship, which ran aground in January 2012 off Giglio Island with more than 4,200 passengers aboard, was eased into a dry dock at the port for salvage.

It managed to make the four-day journey in a convoy of vessels from Giglio to Genoa without major incident, despite one night of storms.

The ship will be searched for the remains of Russel Rebello, a 33-year-old waiter who is the only victim still missing in the tragedy. A total of 32 people were killed in the disaster.

Searches for Rebello are also underway in Giglio at the site where the ship had rested for the past 30 months.

The lengthy process of dismantling the wrecked ship is expected to take two years.

More than 80% of the Concordia will be recycled or reused, including copper wiring, plumbing pipes, kitchens and some of the plastic room fittings that can be repaired.

The remaining 50,000 tons of steel will be melted down and sold at the market price to be used to make construction girders, cars and even other ships.

Corinna Schumacher is selling the private jet her husband Michael used to fly around the world in for £15million.

The sale – 207 days since his life changed forever in a ski accident in the French Alps – is seen as proof that, whatever the outcome of his rehabilitation may be, he will never be the globetrotter he once was.

Schumacher, 45, lies mute and immobile in a Lausanne clinic in Switzerland with long years of therapy ahead of him as he struggles to get back some of his old life that was shattered when he smashed his head on to rocks on December 29 last year.

Corinna is now offering his grey Falcon 2000EX private jet, capable of carrying eight passengers and flying at 920 km, for sale. It still has Schumacher’s initials on the tailplane.
It was reported at the weekend that Schumacher is continuing to make good progress in the Lausanne clinic following his re-emergence from a medically induced coma last month.

Corinna intends to care for him in a specially built facility on the grounds of their mansion at Gland, 30 minutes drive from the clinic.

The wrecked Costa Concordia cruise ship has begun its final voyage.

Salvage crews refloated the ship last week so they can move it from its resting place off Giglio Island to the Italian port of Genoa to be dismantled.

On Wednesday morning, the rusting hulk set off into open waters under tow.

It’s been more than 2½ years since the ship ran aground off Giglio Island with more than 4,200 passengers aboard, killing 32 people in a disaster that drew global attention.

The vessel will be towed — slowly and carefully — approximately 240 kilometers (150 miles) to Genoa, where it will be broken up. A convoy of 17 boats will travel along with it.

The ship is expected to arrive in Genoa on Sunday. It’ll take about two years to dismantle the massive cruise liner.

Since the wreck two years ago, 24 metric tons of debris — including furniture, dishes, food, personal effects and ship parts — have been recovered from the seabed.

It has become one of the most controversial topics in the world of travel – the presence of giant cruise ships in Venice, and fears over the harm these liners may cause to the famous city.

For the cruise industry, the great Italian island citadel is one of the world’s foremost destinations – a place that adds an elegance and a sense of history to any long voyage.

On the other side are those who think the liners are enormous, incongruous intruders into a place that was never designed to host such ocean goliaths.
Now leading figures from the world of cinema – including Oscar winners Cate Blanchett, Tilda Swinton and Michael Douglas – have added their signatures to a petition, addressed to the Italian prime minister and the Italian minister of culture and tourism, calling for an end to the sight of liners dwarfing buildings such as St Mark’s Basilica.

Other big-screen figures are also on the list of endorsees, including Rob Lowe, Diane Lane, Sir Michael Caine, Edward Norton, Susan Sarandon and Isabella Rossellini.

Other luminaries include architect Sir Norman Foster, Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter and Princess Firyal of Jordan – plus an illustrious line-up of fashion designers including Diane von Furstenberg, Carolina Herrera, Hubert de Givenchy and Calvin Klein.

Venice has already made moves to restrict the movements of cruise ships in its waters.

January brought a reduction of 20 per cent on the number of ships weighing more than 40,000 tonnes authorised to enter the Giudecca Canal (the waterway which separates the main core of Venice from the separate island of Giudecca, immediately to the south).

Further regulations which were due to come into force in November, have now been put back to January 2015.