OK, OK, I realize that we are probably the only people in the Cliffs who had never been to Venice, but it

was true! Everyone has either begun or ended a cruise in Venice, or had a cruise day stop in Venice, but

not us because we don't do large cruise ships. So we decided to make up for that and spent 6 days on a

river cruise ship on the Canale della Guidecca and the Venetian Lagoon, and made up for lost time.

Yes, we did all the things that the day tourists do like a gondola ride in the canal, shopping in one of the

fashion centers of the world, visiting the island of Burano for their hand made lace and of course I had to

visit the island of Murano for a glass blowing demonstration. That's because my grandfather was a glass blower in Illinois in the early 1900's. Now, my grandfather did not blow Venetian glass! He blew milk

bottles. When that became mechanized he then blew beakers and other scientific glassware. So for me it

is always personally fascinating to watch the art of glassblowing and here it is beautiful. And then there's

Ted who went Totally Tourist and had his pocket picked. They were very proficient. His wallet was in a

buttoned flap pocket under the tail of his polo, and he never felt a thing! So beware of crowded bridges

and markets!

Now, the most fascinating part of Venice to me was what the day tourists don't have time to really see.

Just how does this city function?? Venice is comprised of 115 islands connected by over 400 bridges. I

didn't know that. There is no vehicular traffic except at the port; the only way to get around is walking,

cycling or boating; many of the buildings date back to the 1500's; it is laced with waterways and it floods

consistently. So, just how does Venice work??? Well we had a great time finding that out.

Originally the canals were wide and the only mode of transportation was by gondola. Today the

gondolas are only for tourists and everyone has a motor boat. However one doesn't even have to utilize a boat to get around that much anymore because over time walkways were constructed by pounding more

pilings in the canals and creating pedestrian “boardwalks” then sidewalks. That narrowed the canals considerably so that some are now only one boat wide. That also changed many front home and business entryways so that they now can open on a walkway rather than the canal. (I personally can't imagine opening my front door to step into water.) So, that ended the single mode of transportation of the ancient days, but we still don't have any land motor vehicles. How do they function???

Our first education on the functioning of the city was unfortunately garbage. Yep, we start with the

basics, and that involves a man and a cart walking through the city every day. He fills his cart and takes it

to the canal where a garbage/recycling barge is waiting for him to toss his “stuff” off the bridge into the

barge. So that's the Venice version of the garbage truck. However the process of collection itself is also

interesting in that some areas allow the residents put their daily garbage out like we put our our garbage

can out once a week for pick up. Here it is daily, in a small plastic grocery bag and hung on their back

door knob for pick up. In other, less “odoriferous” areas, the residents keep it inside until the collector

knocks on the door, and they bring it out to him. Interesting.....

Then there's the question of shopping. How does all the stuff that people purchase get to the stores so

they can purchase it? There aren't any “Ingles” tractor trailers making their way to anywhere there.

There are truck deliveries, but only on the Grand Canal. The trucks are on a barge and the merchandise is offloaded with a crane or a track hoe to carts or boats and further distributed that way. And, the deliveries are not to an Ingles store because there aren't any there. The stores are mostly single purpose: bakeries, butcher shops, pharmacy, open market produce stores, fresh fish markets, and the residents shop daily. That's because without a car to load your weekly groceries into, one has to carry one's purchases home. Even one day's worth of shopping can get very heavy. 

Now there's also this issue of flooding. Tidal cycles and storms are a fact of nature and have been

happening for centuries. However, within the last 50 years the issue has become regular flooding. Just

how do they deal with that? Well, first of all the typical home is three stories and they deal with

flooding by no longer keeping anything on the first floor. The picture of a front door shows the stoop at

water level. That doesn't give any leeway for tides, storms or sea level rise, so yes, the first floor floods!

However, 1987 the Magistrato alle Acqua initiated the MoSE project to help protect the city from

flooding. It is a barrier system consisting of sets of buoyancy flap gates that are below the seabed and

pivot on a set of massive hinges. They stretch across the three tidal inlets that separate the Venetian

Lagoon from the Adriatic Sea, and when raised they create a dam or dike to keep water out. Since

activated in 2020 they have been raised approximately 25 times per year to limit the maximum water

elevation in the lagoon. That solved a lot of major flooding, but daily tidal issues still remain.

And, how about pets? No front yard.....it's the canal! No back yard.....its the cross island walkway

above which you string your laundry out to dry. While there are some green spaces in Venice, there are

not many, yet Venice is tremendously dog friendly. They are allowed everywhere: in stores, in

restaurants, in places of business. They are all on leashes and well trained, as are their owners. The

owners pick up after their dogs, and even sanitize the freshly sprinkled building corners! The dogs come

in all sizes however the majority are smaller breeds, and to my personal pleasure there were a great many

dachshunds. I grew up with a dachshund and in Venice they come in all colors and sizes and long hair,

short hair, and wire hair varieties.

Then there's gardening.........not really. Remember, no back or front yards, so the gardening, if any, is

done high up on the balconies. I would say the majority of the greenery is for decoration but I did see

some herbs and a few vegetables being grown high, high up. Whatever it is that is being grown makes the

city beautiful.

And then there's the issue of burials. With little green space and the islands sitting on high water, just

exactly what do the Venetians do with their dead? Originally the bodies were put in crypts under the

churches in the city. During the French occupation, Napoleon declared that unsafe, and the separate

island of San Michele was designated as an official cemetery in 1807. The bodies were carried from the

city to the island on special funeral gondolas. San Michele has been the main burial ground for over 200

years and has been expanded several times however space is still tight. So the cemetery management puts

graves up for lease for 12 years, recycling communal plots following lease expiration by removing

skeletal remains to be transferred to an ossuary. When we passed the island on our way to Murano, we

saw them once again making an extension to the cemetery, even though current cremation preferences

have tremendously decreased the pressure for space.

So that is what we saw, learned and did when we were in Venice. And for the very few of you who have

never been there, I highly recommend it, and highly recommend really getting to know just how