Watch: Woman steals a FedEx boat and crashes next to Venice's Rialto bridge

A balustrade on the shore next to the celebrated Rialto bridge in Venice sustained some damage on Thursday after a woman crashed a stolen delivery boat into the historic site.

Italian media reported the woman climbed on board a parked FedEx boat piled high with delivery packages, turned the engine on and attempted to sail away along the Grand Canal but immediately crashed next to the Rialto bridge, much to the shock of tourists and onlookers.

The impact damaged the precious marble balustrade on the side of the bridge, which some media reports said had only recently been restored, and caused some of the packages to fall overboard.

The woman fled the scene but was caught and arrested soon after, according to Italian news reports.

The damaged pieces of the balustrade were recovered and local authorities will now begin the painstaking job of reconstructing the structure at considerable cost.

It is unclear how many of the packages that had fallen off the boat upon impact were damaged.