** FILE ** TO GO WITH STORY BY ALESSANDRA RIZZO AND COLLEEN BARRY ITALY GONDOLIERS ** Gondolier Alexandra Hai of Germany propels a gondola during her professional test in the Venice lagoon in this Sept. 14, 1999 file photo. Cross any bridge in Venice and listen for accordion music wafting up from the canal. Look down, and there will be a gondolier plying starry-eyed tourists along the city's narrow waterways. By tradition, they are stripe-shirted, locally born and male. But a German woman has won the right to join them _ despite having failed the exam to be a gondolier. (AP Photo/Gigi Costantini)