Staying afloat in Venice
Everyday life in Venice
Several days after our arrival in Venice, I was still going around in a daze. I don’t think I could ever tire of this magnificent city. All those famous palazzi and churches along the Canale Grande are wonderful in themselves, but seeing the water lap up onto their doorsteps is a sight that has to be seen to be believed. I once visited a wooden village built on wooden piles on Lake Ohrid, but the scale and grandeur of these Venetian gems is taking living on the water to another level altogether.
Having said all that, it appears that life in Venice is pretty complicated for humans. We seabirds take to life on the water like, well, ducks to water, but there is a lot more to it than meets the eye when it comes to you lot and all your needs. Yes, the day to day reality of living in Venice is certainly not plain sailing!
First off, there are no cars in Venice, but there is some on-street parking – for boats, that is, and boy, there are a lot of boats in Venice. It can be a bit of a tight squeeze at times…
I had, of course, heard about the gondolas, but I hadn’t realised just how many of them there are. There must be hundreds! I suppose they were more obvious because so many of them were parked up, due to the low number of tourists. But that at least gave me a chance to examine them more closely. They are really beautifully ornate and the workmanship is exquisite.
But where do you bring your gondola when it needs a service? A gondola garage, I suppose!
No wonder the gondoliers are so well groomed. There are barber poles everywhere!
Having said that, this particular barber wasn’t exactly doing a roaring trade. Yet another sign of the times, I’m afraid.
Motorised boats and barges are used for the more practical, day to day stuff. There seems to be a boat for every purpose you can imagine. I spotted builders’ barges, police boats, fire boats, ambulances, boats for rubbish collection and of course, boats making all kinds of deliveries, from food to furniture.
The challenge doesn’t end once the goods reach the shore. Practically everything has to be moved onward by handcart. No wonder Venetians are such a fit looking bunch.
I saw one barge piled high with Amazon boxes tearing down the Grand Canal. It all looked very precarious; I could hardly bear to watch. Imagine your brand new books or electronic gadgets meeting a watery grave!
Speaking of which, Death in Venice, as the man says, (or should that be Mann?) is not straightforward either. The local cemetery is located – wouldn’t you know it? – on an island so even hearses here are seagoing vessels too.
Elsewhere, nobody under the age of 80 would be caught dead with one of these. I still chuckle at the memory of Her Ladyship almost dying with embarrassment when she once had to use her 88 year old mother’s one in Dublin. But in Venice it seems that the shopping trolley is a cool accessory, up there with the latest smart phone or fitness tracker. It must still take some guts though to carry off this look!
I was amused at how narrow the ‘streets’ are. Lanes, more like. Our own street was barely wide enough to accommodate the Oldies’ luggage. I know Herself tends to go a bit overboard on the packing but this was ridiculous. And talk about a maze! With our inbuilt navigation systems, we birds are pretty good at finding our way around, but even I found Venice confusing. And so too, by the looks of it do some of the locals, as the Wingless Wonders discovered when asking directions!
Unless you happen to be one of the elite living in a huge palazzo, space is of a premium in Venice. I had thought the Oldies’ balcony was small until I saw this one!
I was also caught by surprise by all the shops and kiosks crammed along the famous Rialto Bridge. It’s basically an arched shopping centre. I much more enjoyed travel underneath it by vaporetto than crossing it on foot. Travelling by boat gets my vote every time!
After mass tourism, from which they are thankfully on a reprieve at the moment, the biggest challenge Venetians have to contend with is flooding. I noticed the temporary raised walkways stacked up along St. Mark’s Square, always at the ready for such eventualities. But even these are of limited use at times, such as last November when a high tide of almost 2 metres devastated the city.
As a seagull, I just bob along and go with the flow. So I suppose it’s easy for me to say, but it does seem that huge amount of effort and expense goes into keeping the water out. I hear that the cost of the new MOSE flood barrier system has run into the billions!
Venice has survived for about 1200 years, so let’s hope it can stay above water for a long time to come. But I fear that, in spite of man’s ingenuity, it won’t always be possible to turn back the tide on nature.
