Problems | Venice: I am not making this up

everything should be objected to

June 22, 2025 19 Comments

Too much is going on in the world, things that involve life and death — I’m sure you’ve noticed that — so news from Venice is almost forced to verge on the frivolous.

Of course, that doesn’t mean that here in the most-beautiful-city-in-the-world we don’t have our problems. Big ones, small ones, transient, permanent, easily resolvable if one wanted to, of all shapes and sizes and relative atomic masses. It’s very hard to keep track of them all, much less grasp their true importance. They’re all important!

Example: The imminent wedding of Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez here sometime next week, by most reports. The date is being changed secretly, or something, for some reason. I think it’s to avoid protesters, a group of which has already made its views known. There are people who object to everything, and now they’ve got this wedding in their sights. I have to say that although I tend to have an opinion on almost everything, this is one subject that defeats me. Unless “Why should I care?” is an opinion.

Stay with me. As you know, those who objected to the big cruise ships passing in the bacino of San Marco to the Zona Marittima finally succeeded in banishing them. Peace, joy and tranquility has reigned, except among the 5,000 families or so who lost their employment in the managing and supplying of these ships. But fine. No ships. You’d think the protesters would be happy. You’d think.

Now Bezos and Sanchez heave to on the horizon, and millions of dollars are going to be spent here over the course of a few undefined days to get the lovebirds hitched. The “No Bezos” contingent is strenuously opposed to this. (I can understand objecting to him as him, if you like, but I can’t see why his wedding deserves dissent.) I do recall there was justifiable anger from the citizens during last year’s Film Festival, for which all of the taxis had been booked over the course of several days. All. The. Taxis. The mayor has reassured the apprehensive citizens that this would not be repeated during the nuptial festivities.

Fun Fact: The Gazzettino reports that some 80 private planes are expected to arrive for the big event. Let’s see, 200 guests divided by 80 makes 2.5 people per plane. So how are the entourages expected to get here? Or maybe the 80 planes are for the stylists and equerries and the Mistress of the Robes and the Gentlemen of the Privy Chamber and the Master of the Revels and the rest of the swarm? The happy soon-to-be-newlyweds may well be ensconced on Bezos’ 500-million-dollar yacht, which is already here.

Now the objectors are clamoring against the luxury yachts. A number of luxury yachts are also expected — just look at (or imagine) the guest list. But ever since Covid hardly any big yachts stop by anymore. The Riva degli Schiavoni used to be lined with them, but only a few have tentatively returned, briefly. But the protesters are in full sail. First it was No Big Ships! Now it’s No Yachts! Jeez, people. Are you against literally everything?

I love the yachts, I’ll just say it. I could bury you with photos I’ve made. Here’s some more atmosphere:

So you get the idea. Maybe these yachts make you want to protest; I could easily protest that I don’t have one, but I can’t figure out how to object to you having one. Still, it seems clear that the world is in big trouble whether or not the yachts and/or their oligarchs/celebrities come to Venice or anywhere else. So in whatever time is left to us in the apocalyptic period we’re going through, it seems to me that serious complaints should not be wasted on yachts. By all means get out your bedsheets and markers but I hope you won’t be writing “No Yachts.” Because a real oligarch will just get something else, and it still won’t be yours.

“Preparing the days of common resistence where everyone can say ‘No Space for Bezos!'” And up in the right-hand corner somebody who objects to the objectors has scribbled “Rammollitti andate a lavorare!” (“Wimps! Go to work!”).

“Wedding of Bezos in Venice? Also no! Jeff Bezos thinks he can buy the entire city. Let’s organize the party!” That sounds kind of menacing. At the bottom a strip has been torn off that said “No space for oligarchs.” I think we’ve gotten to the root of the problem.

Another famous and important group of protesters has joined the chat. I mean, the celebrations.

Quick promotion of the boat moored nearby and the film they projected aboard last night. They did get the tape-up-the-flags job done quickly and that’s important. This little slip could happen to anybody.

But this is just temporary tumult. They’ll be here, with their military security personnel blocking off streets and canals — it will be annoying as all get-out even while the couple assures everybody that they love Venice. But it won’t last long and then it’ll be over.

Moving on! Let’s talk about trees instead. They’ve suddenly become more important than yachts because of a tragedy that struck at Piazzale Roma, a place more banal than which it would be difficult to find. But tragedies — or in this case, trees — don’t have much awareness of banality.

You have to watch out for pickpockets and now you have to also watch out for 50-foot (15 meters) trees. (La Nuova Venezia)

I doubt any visitors have given much thought to Venice, City of Trees, but on June 2 a majestic holm oak at Piazzale Roma was heard creaking (wind was not exceptional that afternoon) and then it suddenly keeled over onto a group of 12 people who were hanging around. Two of the victims were seriously injured, one of them a woman with a fractured spine.

June 2 is a national holiday, so of course there were plenty of people everywhere. But it was also the wedding day (weddings again) of a couple waiting at Palazzo Cavalli for their guests to arrive. Some of the tree’s victims had been heading to the ceremony, which was naturally called off.

So now the city is frantically monitoring the trees and in the Giardini, and undoubtedly elsewhere, we see stumps and cut-up branches waiting to be taken away. But hold on: Some concerned citizens are objecting to all this. They maintain that suddenly the trees are in at least as much danger as the people who walk near them.

Of course it’s wrong to leave trees wobbling with fungus-ridden roots (one hypothesis for the disaster), but there is a case being made that it is just as wrong to remove trees that, according to a new group of protesters, never showed the smallest defect. Obviously we don’t want trees that are going to fall on us, but which ones are we saving? Are honest, law-abiding, tax-paying trees going to be sacrificed because of a few rotten ones? That’s what it looks like to those who are now protesting what suddenly appears to be the the wholesale slaughter of Venetian trees. A group has formed, of course, and the other evening on the Giudecca I passed a table set up by persons collecting signatures on a petition entitled “Save the Trees.”

If Venice is now in the hands of lumberjacks working overtime, all I can say is that clearly it was long past time to have checked the condition of the city’s trees and the city should be ashamed. And I’m sorry that people had to suffer in order for this admittedly pretty important task to finally get bumped way up near the top of the city’s “DO TODAY ASAP URGENT PRIORITY” to-do list.

This statue of Francesco Querini at the “Giardini Pubblici” vaporetto stop has stood for more than a century in the shade of ever-growing trees.

Everything looked fine. But appearance are so deceiving.

Turns out he was in mortal danger. Now he’s baking in the sun after the potentially dangerous trees have been excised. Even half of a magnolia was ready to strike.

Suddenly there’s wood everywhere. The newspaper said that at least seven trees had been earmarked for removal in the viale Garibaldi alone, that long shady stretch between via Garibaldi and the vaporetto stop at the Giardini. Seven. And we just kept traipsing along as if everything was fine.

I can see how this tree was harboring a secret.

Hey, stop for a minute. While everybody’s losing sleep about dangerous trees, it seems that nobody’s interested in objecting to the blatant neglect of simple things that make a city look decent. Thousands of locals and tourists walk through the Giardini Pubblici every day. Why do the benches have to look like they’ve been salvaged from some shipwreck? This didn’t happen overnight. There’s no money for paint? This is just dumb. Yes, I object.

Even my sainted mother would have objected to this. First, that this misfortune occurred, and second, that it has been left like that for weeks. It looks stupid. This is how “Save the Benches” groups (I made that up) get organized.

Some protests, however, are about things that are more important than weddings and forestry. I’m thinking about the proposed re-routing of the 4.1 and 4.2 vaporettos. There are two objections to this notion. One is convenience (sudden lack of), and the other is probable damage to the fondamente of the Arsenal canal. Plenty of people are now up in arms and collecting signatures against this potential change.

This route used to exist; I remember passing this way back in the mid-Eighties — it was convenient and a heck of a way to see a glimpse of the city that’s closed to the public.

But then it was decided to send the boats the long way around Sant’ Elena on their path from the Arsenale stop to the Fondamente Nove, as a clear and wonderful service to the semi-isolated residents of the area who needed more than just one line.

But no longer. The residents of farthest Castello and their needs/desires have dropped off the list of municipal priorities (I’m beginning to wonder if there even is such a list), and the people aren’t happy. Yes, the 5.1 and 5.2 will continue to serve San Pietro di Castello, but there is also that pervasive sensation that tourists take precedence over the locals (let’s speed up the trip to Murano and not waste time going around the touristic dead-end of Sant’ Elena). And, as I say, there’s also the likelihood that waves will damage the walls of the canal, which somebody ought to be thinking about in whatever time is left over from felling lumber.

Without the 4.1, anyone at Sant’ Elena that needs to go to the hospital will have to take the 5.1 to the Lido and change there for the 4.1. Anyone at San Pietro di Castello who needs to go to San Zaccaria will have to take the 5.1 and go to the Lido and change there for the 5.2. Does that sound like anybody at the ACTV Planning Office and Marching and Chowder Society is particularly interested in life at the local level?

The rio dell’Arsenale leads from the lagoon toward the Arsenal. One hopes the schedule will ensure that the northbound and southbound vaporettos don’t meet here. The more serious consideration is the effect of the waves on the fondamente lining the canal.

I realize that, as I mentioned, the vaporettos managed to pass through here several decades ago. I just have a different outlook on the procedure this time. Looks kind of tight here between the pilings and the footbridge. Both of which can be adjusted. Somewhat. Looking at you, high tide.

I see four tricky little points to get through, but I know there won’t be any problems. The vaporetto captains are fine. Not sure about the waves hitting the fondamente in what is still an area belonging to the Navy, but I suspect the city is working to resolve that issue. Navy proprietorship, I mean, not the waves. The city doesn’t care about waves.

I can tell you from experience that the force of the tide through this very narrow space is something to take into consideration. But the vaporettos have motors, so no worries.

Looking at the entrance into the Arsenal from the northern lagoon. The hole in the wall was made years ago for the express purpose of creating a space for the vaporettos to pass through, so why am I wasting time thinking about all this? What really matters is the enormous inconvenience this new plan would impose on the locals. But, like the waves, that doesn’t seem to matter.

In conclusion, let me bring up a genuine problem. There is a desperate need to find and keep enough family doctors to care for the admittedly dwindling population. They are called “medici di base,” or basic doctors, and under the national health system you have to have one. Whatever procedure you may require has to start with an official request (I call it a work order) from your assigned doctor, and some doctors have up to 1,000 assigned patients. The older doctors retire, the younger doctors don’t stick around. You can wake up and find yourself literally without an assigned doctor, it has happened to us more than once. This will never make international, news (celebrity weddings are so much more engrossing), but I can assure you it’s one of the most important problems that eastern Castello, if not Venetians everywhere, is worried about.

A few days ago a big public meeting was held in via Garibaldi at which various citizens’ groups expressed their complaints — and not for the first time — to assorted official representatives (politicians and representatives of the health system). Their thoughts were clear from the home-made banners, and I expect that these banners are stored close at hand for the next inevitable outcry from the struggling locals. Note: AULSS stands for Azienda Unita’ Locale Socio Sanitaria, or Unified Local Social Health Agency. Venice’s section is #3.

(L to R, translated by me): The family doctor is a right. AULSS 3 less propaganda and more territorial services. AULSS we’re fed up. We want family doctors. AULSS We’re fed up. Family doctors an adequate number at Castello and Sant’ Elena. We’re indignant!!

I sometimes think the city is just waiting us out, considering that the population is falling by 1,500 per year.

So problems! There are plenty to choose from, and these aren’t even all of them. I’m beginning to suspect that the city government has become desensitized. Maybe all this is just background noise to them by now.

Meanwhile, all these annoying little issues will be swamped for the next week by the drama and glamor of Bezos/Sanchez. We should be glad of a little change of pace?

Venice’s defenders may seem to be mere shadows, but they’re still there.

Problems

surfing the Grand Canal

August 17, 2022 22 Comments

This image of one of the “surfisti” was published in La Nuova Venezia. Fun!

Here’s something I learned today: Electric surfboards exist. They don’t literally go in the surf, but are big rectangles of plastic with a battery-powered motor and a cord to hang onto, and you just zoom away having the water-skiing time of your life without having to bother with attaching yourself to a motorboat. I guess it could be compared to an electric scooter, but on the water. Or a jet-ski that you stand on. Or a turbo-charged paddle board without the paddle.

This much is news to me. What isn’t news is that somebody (two somebodies, actually) decided to bring their toys to Venice and try them out on the Grand Canal. It happened this morning (Wednesday, August 17). What also isn’t news is that imbeciles have some primitive instinct that compels them to come to Venice in the summer, like the wildebeest have to surge across the Serengeti in May. If you are an imbecile with money, you will get there before all the ordinary, common-garden-variety idiot tourists who do mundane little stupid things like jumping off the Rialto Bridge, or cooking your lunch hunkered down around your camp stove in the Piazza San Marco.

Two men aboard these entertaining vehicles suddenly appeared in the Grand Canal, as I said, and after zooming from Rialto to the Salute they somehow managed to disappear before anybody had means, money, or opportunity to nab them. Mayor Luigi Brugnaro was livid and posted this on Twitter (translated by me): “Here are two overbearing imbeciles who are making a joke of the city … I ask everybody to help us identify them and punish them even if our weapons are blunt … there is urgent need for mayors to have more power to ensure public safety! To whomever identifies them I offer dinner!”

Well, they got caught, and it didn’t take more than a few hours. Bulletins didn’t name who gets the credit — and the dinner — for tracking them down, but it may be a while before these two bright sparks will be feeling that rush of adrenaline and endorphins and serotonin and oxytocin and dopamine they were savoring this morning.

They are two Australians who now, at nightfall, have had their boards confiscated (total worth 25,000 euros, or 36,662 Australian dollars), and been fined 1,500 euros each (2,344 Australian dollars). It’s only money and they almost certainly can afford it, but the mayor has initiated legal proceedings against them for “damage to the city’s image.” I don’t know what that is likely to add up to, but I can see lots of lawyers’ fees and whole lots of time being spent on making an example of them.

Naturally I’m as glad as the next person to know that they have been hauled away in chains and leg shackles, but my gladness is curdled by the thought that if it seems incredible that somebody would do this, it is equally, if not more, incredible that they weren’t stopped in flagrante. Along the entire stretch of the Grand Canal (3,800 meters or half a mile) there was not one carabinere, state police, local police, lagoon police, firefighter, dogcatcher, anybody at all with a badge and a walkie-talkie who was on the scene, ready to intervene.

I know it’s an old joke to say that you never see one when you need one, but if I were the mayor I’d be spending less time dudgeoning about these two cretins, and instead be chairing a serious meeting to find out where the hell everybody was. It’s invigorating to want — what was his phrase? — “mayors to have more power,” but it seems to me that if people were on their assigned jobs at their assigned times and places, the mayor wouldn’t need more power. The mayor’s supposed to make the system work, not BE the system.

I can imagine scenarios more serious than electric surfboards that would have had urgent need for a rapid intervention (baby falling into the water comes to mind), and yet, nobody’s on hand. “Please leave a message at the tone….”

Oh wait. The shell-game shysters have returned to their traditional places to pluck the unwary tourists ready to gamble. Maybe that’s where the police were. If not there, they must have been out patrolling the myriad motorboats causing extreme motondoso this year, though the waves make me doubt it. If not there, maybe they’re going around checking store-owners’ certificates of fire inspection.

The Grand Canal is Fifth Avenue! It’s the Champs Elysees! You can’t have Fifth Avenue with no police officer in sight. Something goes wrong on the Champs Elysees — there must be at least one policeman patrolling. But here in Venice we have the Grand Canal with nitwits running wild in broad daylight and the mayor has to turn to Twitter to ask for help finding them. Am I wrong, or is that just a little bit dumber than speed-surfing on Main Street?

Problems, Transport

International Women’s Day

March 8, 2022 5 Comments

The word hasn’t reached this street in Sant’ Elena that it’s a festive day for women.

This day is commonly observed here by means of sprays of mimosa. I’ve written about this before.

I never buy the bunches of mimosa sold by various street vendors, but this little bouquet was bestowed on me by a member of a social club that we walked past this evening. They had a whole table full of them, and it was getting late.

Today, in addition to the mimosa, we had a 24-hour transit strike (busses, trams, trains, and of course vaporettos). This is some sort of inexplicable sub-tradition, because Women’s Day has been disfigured by a transit strike more than once. Some vaporettos will run, but it will be a task to reorganize your day to accommodate the ACTV, the public transport company. If this strike were to accomplish something, I’d be so glad. But it seems a feeble reed to wield in the struggles that women live through every day, up to and including their struggles with the ACTV.

The ACTV has a hundred reasons for calling strikes; we have one every few months. They are mostly politically motivated and are usually directed at lapses in administration. Work problems, not human problems. This year they’ve decided to take every social problem yet identified and load them onto a highly worthy cause and, you know, let the women carry it.

This is the announcement on the vaporetto dock. Note that the date is written, as typical here, with the day first, month second.

These are the reasons for the strike: “Against masculine violence against women and violence in general towards LGBTQIPA persons; against every discrimination, molestation and sexual blackmail regarding access to and in the places of work; against the sexual division of work and racism; against job insecurity, exploitation, disparities of salary, involuntary part-time and being fired; against the dismantling and privatization of the social state; for the right to free and accessible public services, to income, to the minimum salary according to law, to the reduction of work hours to be equal to salary, to the house, to work, to scholastic education, to health care and to public transport (*wait, what?*); for the safeguarding of health and safety in the workplace; for the defense and strengthening of safe houses, of the centers against violence and the anticipation of measures of escape from violence; for the defense of Law 194 (*right to abortion*) and the right to self-determination, of the national network of public consultori (*these correspond to social workers)* and without objectors; for the redistribution of wealth, social and environmental justice; for the defense of the right to strike.” It’s impossible to object to these goals, but I still can’t see how not showing up for work is going to accomplish them. I guess there will just have to be another strike.

So the ACTV demonstrates its sensitivity to the problems of women in Venice, the nation, the world, by creating problems for women. Transport strikes absolutely mangle your day in a city with basically two alternatives — feet and taxis. Let’s say you have to accompany your sick neighbor to the hospital for her radiation therapy today. During a strike last year we walked to the only functioning vaporetto stop, much farther than the usual stop, and took the sole working vaporetto two stops to San Zaccaria, where they put everybody ashore. Then we had to walk inland, streets, bridges, streets, bridges, to get to the hospital under our own fading steam. She was so frail by then, but such a trouper.

When the next strike rolled around she could hardly walk to the corner anymore, so we had to take a taxi — that will be 50 euros (rate from her house to the hospital). And 50 euros back, naturally. Her pension was 750 a month. But sure, the ACTV’s union disagreements come first.

So just work your way around the strike however you can, or can’t. Kids going to school? Get them up at 4:00. (Made up, but not by much.) Going to your job, or your second job, today? Call to say you can’t make it and lose the day’s pay. Or walk. Be sure to consult the labyrinthine schedule of the times and routes of the limited service, or just decide to stay home.

So thank you, ACTV, for acknowledging all the problems that ought not to exist in a woman’s world. I don’t see you on the list, though.

It’s a good thing the timetable for the flowering of this mimosa tree behind us is not scheduled by the ACTV. I wonder if they’d make the tree go on strike?

Problems

Dredge we must…

December 22, 2021 13 Comments

It’s not just the buildings — even the canals are getting big repairs.

Simple, but effective, this is how they removed the mud in 1956. This is “dry” dredging, during which a section of canal is blocked by temporary barriers and the water pumped out. If you need to repair foundations of canal-side structures, this is your only option. I really have only one question and that is why are the men wearing white?

And this is “wet” dredging, or *scavo in umido*. They’re here to deepen the canal by removing metric tons of mud — the foundations will have to wait to be checked some other time. Here one man with a mastodontic machine is doing the work of ten or 20 men years ago, except that years ago wet dredging didn’t exist. Progress.

There are roughly 150 canals in Venice, which might sound like a lot, though you probably have many more streets where you live. But whatever they’re made of, streets require maintenance. And often — make that quite often, in Venice — maintenance is conducted only when it has become absolutely necessary.

Canal-beds here are made of mud, and the movement of the tides, plus the thrashing of motorboat propellers night and day, tend to make the mud move around. Sometimes the waves (underwater force of) push it to the sides of the canal where it accumulates, blocking any drains that might be emptying from buildings; the blockage causes the material to build up and over time the chemicals in the material damage the building’s walls. So the mud has been transformed from a water problem to a land problem, and sometimes is the signal that it’s really time to deal with it.

Or the the mud swirls around, carried by the water to wherever the force of the waves diminishes, at which point it eventually drifts downward and is deposited on the bottom. When this process reaches the point where there is no longer enough useful average depth to the water, the dredgers are called in. Just think: High water means that many boats can’t pass under certain bridges until the tide turns, but low water can mean that boats can’t pass at all, bridges or not. This is not a happy situation if the boat in question is an ambulance, or belongs to the firemen. So yes. In your town your roads have potholes. Here we have mud.

One morning in late November, we discovered that dredging of our canal, the rio de Sant’Ana, was imminent. Many copies of the official notice were taped to the red and white striped security tape strung along the pilings. Everybody stopped to read, especially people like us whose boat is in the foreground, therefore directly in the path of danger.

Here’s what it comes down to: “Move your boat, we need space so we can dredge between November 15 and December 17, or whenever we finish the work.” Like everybody else on the canal, we had to move our boat somewhere else, which wasn’t a problem. And we soon discovered why the decks, so to speak, had had to be cleared; the dredge would have splintered our little watercraft to kindling. For lots of others, though — for the people who use their boats for work — points 2 a and b were more problematic than where to park it. “From 7:00 AM to 6:00 PM on Monday to Friday, all boats, either by motor or oar, are prohibited from passing this stretch of canal. Emergency and public service boats that have a need that can’t be accomplished by any means other than passing this canal are authorized to pass here but in any case must reach an agreement with the dredging company.” Do not even think about inconveniencing the dredges, this operation costs real money and it needs to get done on time.

The next to last holdout moved his boat a few hours after I took this picture. Maybe he noticed the two big dredges ready to start work the next day.

As I said, waiting on the other side of the ponte de Sant’Ana to start work, which they will just as soon as the tide goes out just enough to allow them to pass under it. If there is anyone who checks the tides table more than I do, it must be the operators of “Valerio”, the big green dredge, and “Zio Mario” (Uncle Mario), the smaller blue one.

Dredging the canals ought to be like painting the Forth Bridge, i.e. continuous. Yet years, sometimes decades, can pass between interventions. Why? (checks notes) Yep: money again. This map announces the conclusion of the canal-dredging program in the 30 above-listed canals. To be fair, dredging the remaining 100 clogged-up canals, at 150,000 per canal, is an impressive line in the city’s future budgets. Frivolous note: I’m sorry to see that I missed the work in the only canal listed here for Castello because it’s a really narrow canal and it would have been fun to see what sort of machine could have gotten in there. Guess I’ll have to wait another 30 years for my next chance.

This perspective shows the importance of the accuracy of the tide forecast. Of course the hydraulic arm lies down flat, but there’s the little factor of the deckhouse.

They eventually were working the whole canal together. Here they’ve finished for the day; you can see that Uncle Mario is backing up, stirring up more mud for tomorrow.

A good day’s work. Back for more tomorrow. If I had time, I would seriously find someone to tell me how they knew when the job was finished. Metric tonnage of sediment? Strictly by the clock? Fuel consumed?

They were as good as their word: On December 17, they departed, and on 19 we rowed our little boat back to its mooring. When the weather is cold, the water is usually extremely clear, and I can tell you that we could see the bottom of the canal by the wall, and it was definitely deeper. Of course, as always, we’d have to measure it at low tide to know how much deeper it was, compared to two months ago (at low tide). But keeping in mind that now, and for the next month, the lagoon is prone to exceptional low tides, that would also be deceptive.

But the saga continues; dredging is far from over. Via Garibaldi is a rio tera’ — “earthed-in canal” — but not literally filled in, as you might have innocently imagined, because a large culvert was installed beneath the pavement to allow the tidal flux to continue its useful work of fluxing. And over the years the tide had deposited mud in this culvert, too. A filled-in culvert is just as bad as a clogged-up canal.

Conclusion: Considering a new career? Give some thought to dredging Venice. Just regard it as the Humber Canal of cities.

Via Garibaldi is approximately 345 meters long (1,100 feet). That’s a lot of canal to suck dry.

The view from the riva dei Sette Martiri onward toward the end of the line at the vegetable boat is impressive. The white barriers snaking down via Garibaldi are guarding the many tubes.

The intermittent rectangular interruptions are crosswalks.

This is what’s happening: “Intervention of refurbishment of the sewer network damaged by the high water” — oh, you mean the one two years ago? What’s your hurry? — “and removal of mud in Rio Tera’ Garibaldi.”

As you see, the underground canal is getting to be in a tight spot. Opening it more generously will be appreciated by those who have been inhaling that unmistakeable biological aroma at super-low tide. In case you think that just filling in the canal would be a better idea, you should know that a few years ago they did exactly that in a small canal in Cannaregio. It wasn’t long before the residents were up in arms because the tidal flow was blocked and stench ensued. The city had to pay to open it up again.

Here you can just make out the top of the street’s arched support. At extremely low tide, which will be here soon, you can see the bottom inside. A bottom which will eventually be much lower.

End of the white fences. Let the pumping begin!

I’d never given any thought to where this manhole cover might lead. Now I know.

The pump is seriously ready to work, moving that mud out of the dark and into the waiting barge. But ask not for whom the mud tolls, because the mud will be back.

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