Friday, August 16, 2013

Venice the City of Water





Venice is 100 islands in a lagoon.  It is scarcely above sea level, and the Aegean Sea lurks at its edges ready to devour the whole city.

In the old, famous part of Venice there are no autos, and no bikes.  The bridges are elevated to allow boat traffic, so any cyclist would have to dismount, carry her bike over the bridge (ponte) and re-mount.  Really not worth it considering every 300-400 m you have to repeat the process.


Brenda and I wondered aloud at what happens when your refrig has to be replaced?  It has to be purchased, loaded on a boat, brought as near as possible, and hand-trucked the rest of the way.  Sounds expensive doesn’t it?

After our visit, Brenda researched it a bit.  It turns out that Venice is built on wooden pilings driven int to the clay of the lagoon.  There is little oxygen in the water & clay, so not much decay occurs.  The wood had to be shipped in, because Venice was too wet to produce timber.  So the wood had to be purchased, loaded  into boats, … well you got the picture.

Like many things, it is beautiful, but it has its drawbacks.

More on Venice later.



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