Acqua Alta, Water

Waterworld again

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It seems as if there is just about every form and manifestation of water to be had around here, at some point or other.

To take an extreme example, we had some weather yesterday evening.  A friend sent me this clip of the scene at the Rialto Bridge (I don’t know who made it, but I absolutely wish I’d been there).  All that’s missing are a few spawning salmon and a hungry bear.

And then there is The Drainpipe.

Lino is obsessed by this drainpipe, and I can’t say I blame him. I’m not qualified to suggest a different setup of the pipe, but if somebody had wanted to find a solution I bet they would have.
The reason isn’t so much the pipe, in itself, but how blithely it makes itself at home over a rather worthwhile plaque. Seems rude — that’s what the issue comes down to. It’s the kind of thing I’d have been worked-up about, back before obsession-fatigue set in.  (Translated by me): “Restored the aforementioned two rooms by reason of Domenico Marchio Celsi by his heirs in the year 1686.”  I suppose it looked just fine for 300 years or so, then progress intervened.  As it does.
This unhappy sight is out there for anybody to see — how embarrassing — who takes a short-cut down a very small and narrow side street near us. Does it seem wise to order a new street-level door made of iron in a place where salty water is almost guaranteed to soak it? “Gosh, look at that,” Lino said. “Wow.”  Or let me put it this way: Seeing that there are methods for removing rust from marble, does it seem wise to leave it this way at the entrance to an apartment that’s rented to tourists?  First impressions and all.  

Not made up — the door leads to one of the thousands of rentable apartments in town.
The house next door was not stricken, as you see — the entrance is higher, which always helps, and the door is made of wood. Not perfect either, considering how wood swells when wet, though I don’t know if that happened here.   And something regrettable happened to the stone step and its underpinnings.  That’s a thing about Venice — even when everything is bone dry, water still has the last word.
There are plenty of signs still visible of the damage caused by the hideous high water of November 12, 2019. This is in our doctor’s office.  You see how intelligent the builders were in placing the electrical outlets up so high.  They may have thought they were exaggerating, but not really.

People sometimes ask me how deep the water is in the canals. And I always ask, “At high tide, or at low tide?”   And they go, “Ummmmm…..”.
The extreme low tides in winter went on longer than usual a few months ago. As long as you have enough water to keep  the boat afloat, you’re fine — but only if you’ve figured out a way to climb onto (or off) your boat in a way that doesn’t threaten you with bodily harm.
Our boat, second from the bottom of the frame, presents an unreasonable challenge at low tide.  Life, limb, and the pursuit of happiness — in this situation, you can either plummet onto the boat from the fondamenta, or on your return you can attempt to scale the wall with no tools at all.  I finally bought a rope ladder.
This is a simple, classic Venetian boat called a sandolo; it can be bigger or smaller, but this is the essential shape of several everyday boats. Just setting the scene here, giving a sense of scale to clarify the next photographs.
Let me present one of my own favorite fixations: How the boat-builder made such a rookie mistake as to put the water-draining hole (“ombrinale”) where the water doesn’t flow.  It’s easy to see the rainwater that has collected on the bow; the boat is intentionally stored tilting forward in order to aid the drainage.
But in this case, the water has collected upstream, if you will, and has no way to drain out by itself.  You can see the hole helplessly sitting by itself on the right side of the wooden barrier, and the accumulated water sitting equally helplessly on the other side.  It’s like Pyramus and Thisbe.  Let’s say anybody can make a mistake (the worker never read the plans?  Had never encountered a boat before?  Or water?  Or gravity?).  All that needed to be done to solve the problem was just to cut another hole on the upstream side.  But as you see, here we are.

 

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4 Comments

  4. That torrent from the Rialto was truly quite terrifying! total downpour.I do agree with Lino, many people make such basic mistakes in where wires/drainpipes etc. are positioned, all it takes is a bit of forethought, and a moderately practical nature.
    So glad you haven’t washed away in the volume of water.

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