An isolated Australian outpost in remote Antarctica has become a popular destination for adventure-seeking tourists, as more tour operators put it on their itinerary for more than just researchers.

The 97-year-old Mawson's Hut, in Cape Denison at Commonwealth Bay, was home to Sir Douglas Mawson and his men during the 1911-14 Australasian Antarctic Expedition.

It had more than 300 visitors in December -- a record number -- with another 100 expected on the last ship that arrives around January 23.

"It's becoming a more popular tourist destination, I think, because it's part of an increasing trend in Antarctic tourism," Bruce Hull, senior environment officer at the Australia's Antarctic Division, told Reuters.

"By the time the fifth ship arrives at Cape Denison between the 20th and 23rd of January, I think the numbers will be about 400 visitors for 2008/09," he added.

This compares with about 260 visitors in 2006/07, and about 200 visitors in 2000/01.

The gruelling sea and icy conditions makes the six-day passage across the Southern Ocean attractive to only the most daring type of traveler. Four companies, from Australia, New Zealand and Germany, go down to Cape Denison and Hull said the ships posed no threat to the environment.

"All activities in Antarctica are subject to an environmental assessment and each tourist expedition is subject to that," he said. "On the whole most tourist ventures are assessed as less than minor or transitory."

Mawson dubbed Cape Denison the "Home of Blizzards" because of its severe climate and the area is only accessible for a ten-week period, between mid-December and mid-February, when weather conditions are less inhospitable.

Chris Perkins, sales and marketing manager for Orion Expedition Cruises which runs trips to Cape Denison, said Mawson's Hut was a part of Australian history that had now become slightly more accessible.

"It's becoming more popular because more operators are providing ways to get down there. Five or ten years ago it was very difficult, only research ships went there," he explained.

"It's one of the most exclusive and difficult places on the planet to get to. Mawson's Hut is part of Australian history, it's preserved in ice basically, it's kind of like a time capsule," Perkins said.

The average age of visitors to Mawson's Hut is about 45-55 years old, and travelers need to be certified fit by a doctor to be able to go there.

There are also strict quarantine guidelines -- tourists are required to wash and disinfect their boots before they go ashore and clothes and baggage must be checked for seeds and other agricultural items.

Since the beginning of the modern Antarctic tourism industry in 1969, the number of tourists in Antarctica has grown from a few hundred to more than 30,000 each year, according to the International Association of Antarctica Tour Operators.

Italy is to reopen medieval and Renaissance inland waterways so that tourists can travel more than 500 kilometres (300 miles) by boat from Lake Maggiore to Venice via Milan.

This summer engineers will start clearing eight kilometres of canals from the southern end of Lake Maggiore at Sesto Calende to Somma Lombardo. Alessandro Meinardi, of the Navigli Lombardi (Lombardy Canals) company, which is overseeing the project, said that the aim was to make navigable the whole of the 14th-century 140-kilometre stretch of waterways from Locarno in Switzerland to Milan.

The restored canal system would eventually link up with the River Po, winding its way to Venice by way of Pavia, Piacenza, Cremona and Ferrara. Whereas the waterways used to transport goods, they would now enable visitors to take “the slow route” to Venice, “drifting past the Italian Renaissance landscape”. The billion euros (£886 million) project aims to revive what was once a main transport artery, as confirmed by casual references to Milan in Shakespeare's plays as an inland port. Some have assumed that Shakespeare was demonstrating ignorance of Italian geography by referring to ships at Milan in plays such as The Two Gentlemen of Verona and The Tempest. In The Tempest Prospero says that at Milan “they hurried us aboard a bark, and bore us some leagues to the sea”.

Francesco Rusconi Clerici, a Milanese engineer, said the first part of the route was originally used to transport marble from quarries at Candoglia in the Val d'Ossola in Piedmont to build Milan's Gothic cathedral, the Duomo, which was begun in 1386. The trip, using horse-drawn barges known as cagnone, took two weeks, with each barge carrying up to 50 tonnes of stone.

The canals began falling into disuse in the 1930s, as goods were transported by road and rail instead of water. They became unnavigable either because of neglect or because dams were built for irrigation. Electronically controlled locks would now be built.

The canals of Milan were first built in the 12th century by Benedictine and Cistercian monks, and later expanded in line with designs by Leonardo da Vinci, linking the city to the sea. Leonardo turned his hand to waterways after painting The Last Supper at Milan's church of Santa Maria delle Grazie.

Some of Milan's canals have already been restored for picturesque boat trips, including the oldest one, the Naviglio Grande , now lined with boutiques and cafés. La Stampa newspaper said canals were enjoying a revival throughout Europe, not least in Britain, with a rise in property values along navigable waterways.