Acqua Alta in Venice

Venice...floods about 100 times a year, beginning in October and running through late winter. I'm attaching an excellent article from Rick Steves's website that explains this, and also adding my personal observations and discussions with locals.

 

First, Steves's article, "Is Venice Sinking?":

 

www.ricksteves.com/watch-read-listen/read/articles/is-ven...

 

I spend three days and four nights in Venice in December 2019 (whence come these pictures). On two of the three days, high tide made it challenging to get around.

 

For those of you who have been to Venice, you know the main part of the city ("downtown," if you can call it that) is made up of 118 islands connected by over 400 (416, I think?) bridges and bisected by the Grand Canal. It's a maze. Even with Google maps, it's literally a maze, because not every bridge takes you easily from one island to another. Some are dead ends, etc. This is when it's dry.

 

Now, add the extra layer of rising tides that cut off even more avenues of the maze and it's an absolute headache getting around.

 

All of these pictures were taken as I tried (and failed) to walk across the island from Piazza San Marco on the south to the northern end of the island -- Cannaregio -- where my apartment was.

 

In dry conditions, this is about a 30 minute walk if you're good at navigating the maze. On this afternoon, I made it about 80% of the way back with no viable routes to walk the last 5 (well, certainly less than 10) minutes. My choices were either wait until the tide rolled out (1-2 hours) or pay a water taxi to take me. I couldn't wait and ended up paying an exorbitant fee of 60 euros to a taxi (from the train station) to take me on what would have been a 20 minute walk from there. Ouch.

 

Once I got back, I asked my friend Alexia whether this is normal, if it's global warming, bad luck, or what?

 

I was curious about whether it was normal as most of the Venetians seem prepared for this. Many had on knee high or thigh high rubber/plastic boats and slowly made their way through.

 

She told me that it's very normal in November, but not so much in December. It's not that the tides aren't normal (they happen every day, of course). It's the height of them.

 

Last month, in November 2019, I recall reading an article about Venice flooding with pictures that surprised me. On the day in question, the tide rose to 187 cm. (For those in the west, that's only 2 inches shorter than NBA star Steph Curry or, for those who know me...it's my exact height.) I'm not exactly short, by comparison, so that's a pretty tall change for a few hours.

 

In the pictures you see here, the tide was 120 cm./4 feet. That's certainly enough to flood the island.

 

Venice's quick solution to this is to throw up elevated wooden platforms as temporary sidewalks. In the main areas -- St. Mark's Square, specifically -- think of all the tourists you would normally have bottlenecked and you can imagine the slight headache of free motion. Before the tides (when it's dry), you see these supports and wooden slats stacked up and may wonder what they're purpose is. Tides more than answer that.

 

The following day, the city flooded again. As I was walking from my apartment to the southern end of the island to go to a museum, I got to the Grand Canal near Rialto Bridge and found myself at an impassable point...that was right in front of a gondola service. (I think I could have backtracked and made it, but no guarantee.)

 

I hadn't actually been on a gondola before and -- they're expensive, by the way...especially for a solo traveler (80 euro for about 30 minutes) -- decided to take one because it's Venice and if you're ever going to ride a gondola, it should be here.

 

The gondolier took me from just south of the Rialto Bridge up the Grand Canal just past the Rialto Market, and back. All in all, not very far (and I didn't check time, but I doubt it was 30 minutes).

 

However, we got to talking. I asked how the flooding impacts tourism and business and he says there are far fewer tourists now who are simply scared of floods. (The attached Rick Steves article points out why you may not need to worry much.)

 

The gondolier said that the tide on Sunday reached 125 cm (4'2"), though it didn't seem nearly as high as the previous day. I did actually walk across half the island reasonably easily, so I was thinking he's probably toning down the reality a little because it affects his livelihood. However...just a little. The things he said that I believe are that, "When the tide reaches 140 cm., this is a bit too much for the city to handle."

 

He also told me some facts about the city that have nothing to do with the flooding, yet I found interesting: There are 50,000 residents on the main islands and an apartment/house of 90 square meters (900 square feet) runs about 400,000 euros. So if you're in the market to move to Venice for the joy of wading through water, that's the cost of it.

 

After the gondola ride, I ended up hopping on a vaporetto (city bus, but on the water). They run up and down the Grand Canal. (You can see a "stop" in some of my Snapshots of Venice pictures; it's a little enclosed building with yellow trim around the top of it.)

 

Normally, vaporettos run 7.50 euro for a ticket valid for 75 minutes. They come by every 15 minutes or so. However, I never saw where to buy tickets so ended up taking a handful of vaporetto rides for free. I think three in total.

 

This particular one took me from next to the gondola service down to Accademia. The Gallerie dell'Accademia is there (lots of Tintoretto, Titian, Tiepolo, Bosch), directly in front of the Ponte dell'Accademia. For my purposes, the Guggenheim Collection is also here, but about a five minute walk on dry land to get there.

 

However, it was isolated by the tides and I ended up taking off shoes and socks, rolling up my pants, and wading through some bitingly cold (but not dangerously so) water to get there. All told, it was probably about 100 yards at most in water that was just over ankle deep. But, you still have to walk it slowly. Afterwards, I think it took my feet about 10 minutes to regain normal warmth/sensation. (Fortunately, after an hour in the museum -- which was nice, but not as nice as I had hoped -- the tide had receded enough that I didn't have to wade out. The sidewalk was still completely underwater, but only an inch or two by this point, which you can walk through. You tend to see locals walking through water like this balancing on their heels and keeping their toes in the air.

 

Am I personally satisfied that Venice isn't sinking? No. The Steves article does mention Italy's long-term solution to this, but I don't buy it. I don't know what the future holds, though, and won't be around to see the worst effects of it, I feel. I can say that the city's future is tenuous at the moment, but the present...is fine, if sometimes slightly inconvenient.

Done