Acqua alta

We are about to leave Venice without ever really experiencing acqua alta. Nevertheless, it is such a fascinating phenomena that I will go ahead and write a bit about it anyway. The first thing to know is that acqua alta (high water) refers to the seasonal flooding that affects Venice. It occurs usually twice a year, between February and April and then again between October and December, and is caused by a combination of factors.
Factor 1 - high high tides occurring seasonally in spring and autumn.
Factor 2 - rain in the mountains, flowing down the rivers into the lagoon.
Factor 3 - rain in the lagoon.
Factor 4 - wind blowing off the Adriatic and into the lagoon.

The first three factors cause the lagoon to become very full of water. The fourth factor - the wind - stops the outgoing tide from leaving the lagoon, and then the next incoming tide is added to the already swollen lagoon, causing flooding. As far as I can tell, this season we only got factor 1 - dramatically high and low tides. While C&C were here we also had a little rain, causing some minor flooding. But it only lasted one day, well one high tide, and we haven't needed gumboots since. (Except maybe for one day when it rained and rained, but then there was no high tide to make it flood.)

An unusually high tide.
The ledge along the wall that you can just see under the water is the ledge used to tip toe along to get to the boats tied up along the canal edge (while also holding onto window frames and a few other hand holds).

The same day the water was right up over the edge on the other side, usually there are steps to water level there.
The only time we've seen it this high.
Thankfully our side of the canal is a bit higher.

As Venice is up and down and all over the place, different parts of it are affected to differing extents by flooding (for example the canal edge opposite us flooding while we remained well above the high water level). When we first visited our apartment, as it is on the ground floor we had been reminded by Svetislava to ask about acqua alta. We had visions of spending October on a floating bed, donning gummies to get to the kitchen or the bathroom. But our landlords laughed at the terror in our eyes and explained that they had undertaken mitigating factors when they renovated and that we'd be safe and dry. Well, for whatever reasons, they were right. (At the time we also looked at a topographical map of Venice that showed its varying heights and basically the whole place is tilted - the northern edge (where we live) at the top, San Marco and the south at the bottom.)

A snazzy pair of bright orange galoshes in a shop front window display. 

Residual water after some flooding in Piazza San Marco - one of the lowest points in Venice.

Another low point, near Rialto market.

Another problem of course is that Venice has always been sinking. Gradually the large heavy buildings subside into the soft alluvial sediment that forms the lagoon floor. Buildings here are constructed on really long wooden piles, like under a wharf, which petrify rather than rot in low oxygen conditions - but how many wooden sticks do you need to hold up one of those huge brick buildings? Very very many, probably more than you bother putting in. For the first five hundred years or so the sinking was likely slow enough not to cause too great a concern, either that or buildings just collapsed. Then in the 1950s, Marghera, an industrial centre on the mainland edge of the lagoon, ramped up production and greatly increased water extraction from the aquifer running under Venice. This water extraction led to the land in the lagoon (equivalent in size to Wellington - 450 square kilometres) sinking about 130mm, that's about the width of your handspan. In the 1970s, when they realised what was happening, pumping stopped the the lagoon floor was stabilised. This was after the worst aqua alta flooding on record, in November 1966 when the whole of Venice became submerged. So anyway, the result of this experiment in sinking a city has lead to quite a lot of interesting architecture - very short ground floor doorways and columns, and ramps and steps leading down to the original floor level of old buildings.

Remember this photo of Finn, sitting on the current footpath level  and hovering his feet above the water covering the old one almost a metre below?
The columns around the Palazzo Ducale are a classic image of sunken Venice - they have become so short as the ground level around them has been built up higher and higher year after year. 

The upshot of all this sinking is an increased vulnerability to flooding. With probable sea level rise due to climate change, the authorities in Venice have taken this issue very seriously. Their answer is the largest infrastructure project ever undertaken in Italy - MOSE. I think that it is both an acronym and the Italian for Moses. The project is seeing the installation of massive steel balloons that sit under the three entrances into the Venice lagoon from the Adriatic. When a tide of between 110cm and 300cm above mean is predicted they fill these balloons with air, causing them to rise up and form a barrier, holding back the tide from entering the lagoon and preventing the worst flooding. At an expected cost of around €4.2 billion it might be an affordable solution to rising sea levels for Italy, but it leaves me a little uneasy. If it costs that much to protect one lagoon from sea level rise, what are island groups such as the Mauritius or Tuvalu, or for that matter anywhere else in the world supposed to do?

A blogging collaboration between the two of us, both writing in the first person...

27 November 2011

Occupy comes to the biennale

Finn reports on Occupy Venice.

While we have been living here in Venice, with no English-language radio, it has been podcasts that have been our main link to the outside world. Our daily fix, say Morning Report equivalent, has been a programme called Democracy Now! It is a bit American-centric but gives you a run down of world news with an activist edge, and then about 3 interviews, for a one hour programme. So anyway, the Occupy movement has been a hot topic these last two months and so I was excited when we arrived to the work gate to see that the occupy movement had made to to Venice. 

To put it into context, Venice is a city of extremes. Mega rich tourists have taken almost exclusive use of Venice and are being serviced by people living in Mestre on the mainland. I would have thought that such blatant income inequality would be prime material for social unrest; it might just be lost in translation, but we've not seen any obvious signs of it. 

The Giardini entrance.

There is also the question of how the Bianale is able to privitise the Giardini. The Giadini is a large green space with permanent pavilions dotted throughout. When the space is not being used for either the art or architecture biennale it is a public park, of which there are very few in Venice. For the last six months people have had to pay 20 euro to get into this park. So for me it seemed right that Occupy should use this space as a focal point for their disquiet. It was only through the invitation of the Nordic pavilion however that they were allowed entrance without paying. Also interesting was the idea that by bringing Occupy Venice within the space of the Biennale, each country represented here could be symbolically occupied.

The make up of the Pavilions themselves is interesting, with all the major world players at the turn of the century vying for attention. At the end of the main avenue, a bit beyond Russia, are Germany, Great Britain, and France, all facing each other off over a central open space. It was this open space that the occupiers first headed towards.

Protesters gathering outside the German Pavilion.

Protesters gathered outside each pavilion in turn and describe how they viewed the social and economic inequalities of that country. So standing outside the German pavilion a speaker addressed the crowd in German and talked about some of the issues faced in Germany. They then showed solidarity for the occupy movement in that country by placing propaganda on and around the pavilion. They were occupying both Venice and Germany simultaneously. 

Propaganda  outside the German pavilion.

Then they would chant and shout and move on to the next pavilion where they would repeat the process.

Here is a copy of the speech given outside the Great Britain pavilion.

And there they are, performing the same routine outside France.

"We are the 99%" flag.
The Occupy movement's argument being that society is being disproportionately dominated by the super rich.

Examples of flyers that were were being posted up.

Banners left by America's tank installation.

Occupy comes to America, Venice.

24 November 2011

Festa della Salute

A celebration held every year on 21 November at Basilica di Santa Maria della Salute. Like Redentore, it was originally about giving thanks for the end of a plague - this one in the mid-17th century. Also like Redentore, a temporary bridge is erected, this one across the Grand Canal. Unlike Redentore, it is freezing and there are no party boats or fireworks. I wouldn't say there was no party atmosphere though, but we'll get to that later.

The 21st this year being a Monday, I'll begin with a bit of our whole Salute day off. It started with some voting drama. As straight forward as it should be to cast a special vote in the New Zealand elections, circumstances have conspired a little against us, not in a major way, just in enough minor ways to make the whole experience less than fun, but hopefully not unsuccessful, we'll probably never know. It started with some easy enough online requests, but then we had wait an age for post from NZ of what we thought would be our voting papers but which turned out to just be an instruction pack - all the information of which was readily available online. Then came the printing and the scanning, easy enough when you've got printers and scanners, less convenient when you don't. Eventually our voting papers came through, via email, requiring more printing, and late last week we made our ticks, with only a week up our sleeves to get them in. In order to cast our votes, we had two options. One - fax them to a special number in Wellington by our Friday night at the latest. Two - post them to the embassy in Rome, arriving by 4pm Friday at the latest. Which brings us to Monday, days off usually being good days to get things done that you've been putting off all week, like vacuuming and voting. So with only four or five days to go, depending on how you count it, and knowing better than to rely on the postal service here, we headed to our local tabacchini to send the fax. Luckily for us (it turned out later), the line wouldn't connect and the fax wouldn't send. The next four or so tabacchini we enquired at didn't have fax machines, but the fifth did, along with a very helpful and friendly tabaccaio. She started off by checking in her book how much it would cost to send. Six pages faxed to a number in New Zealand = €30. This invoked the question: how much would you pay to vote? And the answer: probably a lot, even in these seemingly hopeless elections (saying that, a Horizon poll last week did provide a glimmer of hope). But just not until all (cheaper) options had been fully canvassed. So we backed straight out of the tabacchini and across the calle to the post office, but it being a vague kind of holiday (i.e. kids didn't seem to be at school but all shops were still open), post was closed. Still not being quite ready to cough up €30 for the privilege, it was time to do something fun instead.

We got a vaporetto across the Giudecca Canal to the island of San Giorgio Maggiore.

Still a little foggy and plenty cold, we had determined to spend the day ticking off a few remaining sights and spectacles we had still to see. In the church of San Giorgio Maggiore there's a notoriously dysfunctional biennale installation by Anish Kapoor. We had been to see it months ago but it wasn't working at all, having since heard that it had a temperamental disposition and sometimes worked and often didn't, we wanted to give it another chance.

San Giorgio Maggiore.
Usually home to a few significant Tintoretto's, currently on display in the Giardini.

Anish Kapoor, Ascension.

We lucked in. As we walked into the church, the smoke twisted around itself and spiralled up to the high central dome. As we sat and watched the smoke would disappear, re-emerge, swirl around the high platform in the centre of the church, and gradually ascend twisting and turning untill it formed a perfect swirling column and was sucked out the vent at the top. Four high banks of fans push the air in a circle, causing the smoke to form the tornado (or water spout) -like column. Rising up in the centre of the huge church it is quite spectacular. Then it was lunchtime and we were asked to leave so they could close for the afternoon.

We took a vaporetto across the gap to Giudecca and visited the Chiesa del Santissimo Redentore, the church of the most holy redeemer. We had been in briefly during the Redentore festa, but then we just stood in a corner at the back gawking at the ceremony. Now we have a ticket that get's us into 17 churches in Venice (otherwise they cost about €3 per visit) so we're seeing them all. (I don't think I mentioned it before - last Monday we visited 7 churches, with a break for delicious homely lunch at dalla Marisa. It felt like quite a feat. I also don't think I mentioned that on the map we were given with the church tickets we counted 100 churches in Venice, so 17 ended up feeling like very few. In the end I think we will probably have visited somewhere in the vicinity of 25. That's quite a lot of nice floor patterns to draw.)

From Redentore we walked along Giudecca to a place recommended for lunch. It was warm and friendly and yummy to boot. Just as we were leaving, the fog lifted and the sun shone down brightly lighting Venice up all aglow. I decided then that we had better head back to San Giorgio, as I really wanted to go up the bell tower to get my one and only long view of Venice, and the light was really amazing. As we walked back towards the vaporetto stop the bells of Santa Maria della Salute began to chime in a long and lively tolling. Time for another mass.

By the time we were back on San Giorgio though, the beautiful light had been replaced by thick grey cloud. I was determined to go up the tower nonetheless, but Finn opted to wait it out with Anish, having already been disappointed by a visit up the San Marco bell tower. Hard to please some people some days... Well it may have been cloudy, but I saw plenty, all lovely and soft around the edges.

I saw how the priests keep themselves entertained in their down time.

And out to some distant misty lands.

Across the church complex to Giudecaa.

Across the Giudecca canal to Punta della Dogana and Salute.

The central dome.
That's AK's extractor system coming out the side there.

Palazzo Ducale and the San Marco bell tower with a glimpse of the basilica domes behind. 

Today it's perfectly sunny and clear again and I want to go back up. We'll just have to see how we get on with the few free days we have next week before we leave for good. If it's foggy again I'd also quite like to take another trip through the lagoon back to Torcello.

Anyway, after that detour (which re-routed us from visiting another one of the churches on our ticket), it was finally time to head over and see what was happening at Salute.

Santa Maria della Salute.
Viewed from the temporary bridge.

The funny (strange) thing about the Salute bridge was that it went from one little back alley across the Grand Canal to an even smaller back alley, not especially close to the church at all. From the end of the bridge there was a complete jam of people trying to get through the narrow lanes between there and the church. The open area outside the church was less jammed, but still crowded with people buying long white candles from the ring of stalls - all very similar to what we saw at San Antonio in Padova.

The church was in full regalia for the festa. Brightly lit and draped with finery inside, it was even a little warm.

We joined the throngs and headed inside. The whole church was completely packed with people. There were a couple of competing masses taking place, one at the main alter and another at one of the smaller side chapels. It was Finn's first time inside, but really not optimum floor-viewing circumstances.

The central dome of Salute on an empty day, looking towards the main alter.

A section of the central floor mosaic.

We went with the flow of the crowd and were pushed through an opening behind the main alter to a well frescoed antechamber and from there to a big back room lined with tables selling church trinkets. After making our way through the church complex and being spat out back where we had begun the pilgrimage, it was time to find the famed Salute doughnuts.

This is where the party's at.

The crowds exiting Salute were making on obvious beeline around the side to a different calle to the one we arrived along. At the top of the bridge to get there, it was abundantly clear why. This is where you come for the post penance party.

So many delicious treats to choose from - caramel nuts, toffee apples (and toffee all other kinds of fruits - the figs looked amazing), and doughnuts hot out of the oil.

Happy doughnut man.

Finn got a fresh hot doughnut filled to bursting with nutella. Wo. Happy man. I got a scoop of freshly roasted caramelised almonds - scrummylicious. The freezing festive market atmosphere - and the nuts particularly - reminded me of the Christmas markets we visited in Germany with Anna six years ago. Now I'm looking forward to experiencing Italy's equivalent in every stop as we head towards Rome. Winter ain't bad at all when there are caramel nuts and mulled wine on offer.

24 November 2011

Venetian animals

Venice is an animal city. Nothing new there, people talk about it a lot. For a start, there is no way you could count the number of winged lions in this place. The winged lion is the animal associated, for reasons I am not privy to, with Mark the Evangelist, the patron saint of Venice. Before Mark (before his relics were stolen from Alexandria in the 9th century, apparently hidden by Venetian merchants under lumps of pork - a place the Muslim guards would never look - and brought to their new basilica) there was Theodore. Saint Theodore Stratelates, or of Amasea, who is now depicted on a column in Piazza San Marco with his associated crocodile, which should possibly be a dragon. But beyond the saints, there's a right marble menagerie throughout Venice. Here are a few of my favourites.

A palazzo on Fondamenta dei Mori with one of my favourite marble relief sculptures.

A camel, presumably from a caravan, here in the heart of Cannaregio.

This one's also a winner.
Somebody or other, patron saint of hedgehogs.
Seen here in an archway one has to duck under to get through to the calle.

Hedgehog on a shield.

At the top of the stairway in Palazzo Papadopoli, there is a monkey sitting on the balcony of a wonderful forced perspective fresco.

In the same stairway, these lions held in their mouths the rope that formed the handrail.

This one will look fantastic holding a knocker on our front door.

Similar to the carillon's donkey sculpture...
This one's at Peggy G's. 

As is a row of lions like this one, ready to chomp fast to the ropes tying the boats to shore.

Down the way there's this bell tower-kissing frog.

Beside Salute there's a gateway guarded by this mean looking bird on one side.

And this timid sheep on the other.

These peacocks are to be found on the outside of the Basilica.

And this half winged lion half bearded vulture on the inside.

Here's a back view of the replica bronze horses on the front of the Basilica.
(The real ones are just behind them, in the basilica's museum - an amazing space to visit, up high so right in the thick of the incredible mosaics.)

These guys we pass everyday on our way through Campo Santissimi Giovani e Paolo.

Just for weirdness, here's one of the two dinosaurs decorating the façade of the San Moise church.

The wolf suckling Romulus and Remus is on the recently rejuvenated statue in front of Hotel Londra Palace on the Riva degli Schiavoni.  

Around a corner in Campo Francesco Morosini is this super tough guy ripping open the jaw of a fierce big (unwinged) lion.

He's fighting pretty hard.

Here's another boat-tying lion on the Grand Canal.
Less handsome than Peggy's, I'd say.

Lions also make good props, like this one, greeting customers at the entrance of a fancy shop.

Possibly most important is the lion collection by the Porta Magna, the main entrance of the Arsenale, here reflected with Finn in the canal.
They are like an aunt's owl display - an assortment purchased and gifted over many years and from many places, some big some small, some ugly some clever looking. Two from ancient Greece.

These forced perspective marble panels in the ospedale façade (which was built as the Scuola Grande di San Marco at the end of the 15th century) are probably my favourite thing in Venice.

And finally, an example of Mark's lion.
Seen here at the top of the ospedale façade.

And this is Theodore, with his crocodile and a new Citroen.

Venice would've had quite a different look if it had been populated with crocodiles instead of lions.

In terms of living animals, there are stories about the days when there were horses and mules in the city. Days when the bridges were flat across the canals. Eventually the boats won out over the horses though, and they re-built the bridges with steps up and down so that boats could pass under them but no horses over them. Now, as I have mentioned previously, people just have excessive numbers of dogs, some cats, and quite a few caged birds - parrots, budgies, canaries, etc.

The ospedale aglow at dusk.

22 November 2011