Life on the Water in Venice

 It’s easy to refer to Venice as an island but in reality it is 118 islands connected by 400+ bridges according to Wikipedia. (We did not count.)

It is somewhat shaped like a fish with the access bridge at the “mouth”.

The bridge supports both the train and a highway but both end when they reach the island. 

Cars go to the large manufactured square parking areas in the top left of the image below.

From that point all transit is on foot or by boat. 

Because all the bridges have stairs, even using a bicycle is not practical.

Venice is about ½ mile wide at the narrow part of the fish tail and less than 4 miles long. 

The hospital is the pinkish area of the map on the right side.

This is the grand canal which curves through the center of Venice.

The long boat on the far left that sort of looks like a train car is the equivalent of a public “bus”. 

They are called vaporetto and they traverse the Grand Canal or around the island or to/from 

Venice to neighboring islands.

All the other canals are much too small for a vaporetto.

There is an airport shuttle boat which we will take when we leave.

There are four bridges than span the grand canal.

The Rialto bridge is large enough to host three wide walkways and shops on both sides.

The other 400 bridges are small but every single one has stairs.

This fruit and vegetable shop has found an unlikely piece of “real estate” 

It did not appear that their boat has a motor or steering; it’s just a shop.

This is what a bus stop looks like in Venice. 

This a fire boat not a fire truck. 

There are smaller ones for getting into the smaller waterways.

Ambulances and police are also boats.

Using heavy equipment for repairs and construction requires a barge.

This is both a boat and a crane.

Wine is delivered by boat. Lots of wine!

Probably most of these are going to restaurants and are the “house” wine bought by the glass or 1/2 liter.

But some may be going to vino sfuso shops where you can bring your own bottle and they will fill it.

We found a vino sfuso shop fairly close to our hotel and have twice filled our 1.5 liter 

plastic water bottle with cabernet for less than 4 euro. 

Gondola are highly regulated (price, color- only black, & uniform) but only used by tourists. 

Smaller canals have many small personal watercraft.

Deliveries are done via hand truck. 

Garbage and recycling pickup is also done with hand carts.

The little wheels at the back help on the stairs.

These platforms are stacked up all over the city.

They are used as sidewalks when there is a high-water event.

We didn’t see so many of these when we were here in spring 2017. 

We are not certain if there are more because it’s fall or if there have been

enough high-water events that they don’t put them away anymore.

This image is from a flood in November 2019. 

Eventually the water was so high that the sidewalks were removed because otherwise they would float away. 

90% of Venice was flooded by just over 6’ of water. 

Historically Venetians got their drinking water from cisterns (located everywhere) that collected rainwater. 

We have even seen cisterns in private yards. 

In 1884 an aqueduct was opened to bring water from mainland mountains.

A campaign was started in 2009 to encourage people to drink tap water. 

The goal was to reduce trash and waste from bottled water. 

The tap water is safe and tastes fine and the campaign has had some success.

Another view of the Grand Canal from the Accademia bridge. 

Boats left to right: Gondola (touristy), taxi boat (very pricey), and vaporetto (waterbus).