Venizia

Venice

 Venice is, of course, iconic and unique.  Not another city in the world like it.  And everyone should visit, if possible.  Just not at the same time😉!!  Crowded doesn't even begin to describe the city.  Is it possible to be loved too much??  From our conversation with one native of Venice (born and raised) we gathered that there are problems.  He says that the locals are being slowly "relocated".  The government has no interest in helping the locals ... as a result they are being priced out of the housing market.  Much too profitable to rent all the property to tourists.  

Venice - old and wet

Of course, that is an issue in many places including the United States.  But maybe not to the extreme that is seen in Venice.  Put bluntly, Venice is a cash cow for Italy.  How many visitors is enough?  Are there too many for the city to accommodate?

Beautiful architecture and flowers

We spent two days just walking and walking.  The city is not really that large, you could walk it in a day.  It rained most of the time, the whole area around Venice was experiencing unprecedented amounts of rainfall at that time.  So we walked in the rain.
 

Feeling the effect of the water

 

Venice is, of course, a very old city surrounded by water.  It seems odd that a city built on a lagoon, which is actually 118 small islands all connected by bridges, would be such a powerful force throughout history.  But there you have it, Venice has not only been very powerful but also very wealthy. Eventually, Venice lost some of its prominence and now is more tourist destination than commercial or financial titan.

Rialto Bridge

Sadly, Venice like everywhere is feeling the effect of the changing climate.  The water rises with the tide and floods the city.  It that were not bad enough the city is also sinking.  Efforts are underway to address all the issues, hopefully they will be successful.  In the meantime, their lives are surrounded by and linked to the water.  

DHL delivery guy

 The canals are their roads.  Packages are delivered by boat, groceries and everything else imaginable.  Even trash pickup is by boat.  The only roads are for walking.  Needless to say the water on the canals gets pretty churned up.

Out for a gondola ride

Amazingly, the gondoliers do not get tossed off their gondolas by all the other boats whizzing by.  The smarter ones take the side canals where they don't have as much traffic to contend with.  Regardless, of the route they all have Popeye arms!  

 It was a great visit but now we move on to Florence.  And no doubt more crowds of tourists.  We really hate being tourists preferring to settle in to a place for awhile.  But for a week we are tourists- like it or not.