TRAVEL High watermarks We delve beneath the murky surface of a curiously Venetian problem By Captain Robin Evans, Senior Log Contributor he darkened alleys are cool and slick with dew. Fog has worked through the labyrinth by night, ferrying the aroma of bakery ovens. The night shift is still evident, ghostly street cleaners returning the streets to order. A smudge of sunrise brushes the waterfront to a nodding slap of moored craft and dawn chorus of booming foghorns. A nearby square hides the bacaro Ive been seeking. Named Magna, Bevi, Tasi, it translates as Eat, drink and hush, depicted in a three-monkeys logo. Inside, I do all three under ceiling kaleidoscopes scattered by thick glassware. The smooth coffee and honeyed pastry would be reward enough, but for something unnoticed by most: marked on the door frame, to thigh level, are the historic flood levels of Venice. Carlotta explains how they slot a metal gate into the frame to keep out the water, serving over a split stable door. We keep dry up to 1.6 metres, she explains in her sing-song Venetian lilt. Any higher and we get wet. Water levels To the English, a word association game on 1966 would yield answers of World Cup triumph. Venetians would suggest trauma. That winter brought the highest ever watermark, etched upon homes and minds across this slowly sinking city: 90% of it temporarily submerged. They call it acqua alta, high water, caused by a winter alignment of tides and strong winds funnelling water up the Adriatic. Enduring the acqua is a facet of Venetian life best appreciated after the collective sigh at the end of summer. If watery floods find equilibrium, touristic ones do not. Their overlap is ironic: lowest-lying San Marco also the most oversubscribed. Venice is frequently cited as a crucible of over tourism. The Lonely Planet guide historically estimated that, of 20m+ annual visitors, only a small fraction stay there, an effect exacerbated by cruise ships. Yet tourism has become as necessary as the daily tidal breath that flushes the canals and signals the end of the working day. The city breathes differently outside visiting hours and seasons. A sure way in is with curiosity for its bubbling undercurrents, rather than directions. Curiosity You found it then? Stefano, proprietor of the Ca Marcello, encourages interest in this normally unplumbed topic. It was he who sent me out to the bacaro with an annotated map and a little Venetian. Water even floats in his dialect. Of the influence of navies and trade on his hotels name, Stefano explains: Hard ca, like Spanish casa. He continues: Venetian can be very different; its not taught we hand it down. My wife is Sicilian and cant understand it. On a marine chart, he circles the Venetian Lagoon, a shallow dish mixing Adriatic seawater and alpine rivers. He gestures to his front door leading to a mezzanine level and the canal below the open window, currently a normal 0.6m above baseline. Above one metre comes to our door; for carnival, three years ago, it came inside to our third step. Being Venetian means appreciating how this periodic, unwanted, temporary guest subtly reshapes life, inside and out. Only now do I notice electrical sockets high up on the walls. The sirens historically lured seafarers onto the rocks, but the sirene acqua alta (originally an air raid siren) signals incoming peaks. A series of tones indicate increments above baseline: San Marco succumbs first, another 50cm claiming half the city. Ground level varies by less than a metre, engrained in Venetian minds. The Venice Tides app shows the water level zeroed to your neighbourhood in cartoon form. Paths become canals and canals beneath bridges become impassable. Venetians revert to stivali di gomma (rubber boots) and passerelles elevated metal walkways lying piled aside. If unsuspecting tourists find novelty in floating their suitcases, Venice is weary of apocalyptic nights when the wind shrieks and the lights stab out. So, I divine the scattered watermarks where water becomes life. Sepia prints in a gelato parlour show proprietors past, knee deep against the very walls they now hang on. A quirky bookshop stacks its wares in old gondolas on the bare brick floor, already prepared for the sirens wail. I never do find the grocers window of murky, labelled jars of the record floods of decades past. I also do not get an acqua, but Im submerged with smiles and stories. Aerial view of Venice To the English, a word association game on 1966 would yield answers of World Cup triumph. Venetians would suggest trauma. That winter brought the highest ever watermark Marriage The marriage of city and sea is reinforced in an annual ceremony, a golden ring dropped into the lagoon. First held 1,000 years ago, this hallmark now has a modern twist. Sunk across the three openings of the Venetian lagoon at Chioggia, Malamocco and Lido are metal chambers hinged on the seabed. Theyre vast: the largest at 330 tons. Built in Croatia and carried here by barge, each mounts onto fittings within a subterranean tunnel. The solution resonates historically: sections of the Normandy landing Mulberry Harbours were made of hollow concrete, towed out and sunk into position. When filled with air, they rise in unison, temporarily sealing the lagoon this is Moses. The reference to parting waters is deliberately biblical, less so the finance and scale of such civil engineering grandeur. Begun in 2003, and long overdue, Moses has weathered financial, political and ecological scandal until last winter, everything but the foe it was designed for. Built upon petrified forest, Venice has always been as much ancient engineering as culture. The original, water-savvy locals retreated into the marshy islets to evade barbarians; humble origins belying the ascent to global naval power. La Serenissima, The Most Serene, was the name of this wave-ruling republic but in this very different way it intends to pacify them again. The huge Arsenal in eastern Venice that once churned out men-o-war has been repurposed as Moses HQ, strictly off limits. Pride READ MORE The perfect storm The Council of Ten controlled ancient Venice; dissenters reported by anonymous note through open-jawed lion statues still visible across the city. If knocking Moses feels similar, gondoliers are the modern benchmark of these stirring undercurrents. Venetian-born and tested on their puzzling canal network to qualify, theyre mostly, but not entirely, male and give a spirited account. Carlo, burly, direct and occasionally sardonic, glides into the salty labyrinth. As the city has slowly sunk, so the sea has risen to meet it. Only up close do you see this battle played out in rotten brickwork and crumbling plaster, seaweed reclaiming the steps of vacant ground-floor apartments, family names on their brass doorbell plaques long removed. A copy of Il Gazzettino dangles above us, clipped to a rope by a wooden peg, awaiting its owner. As a proud Venetian, Carlo resists insensitive engineering solutions. He attacks the nearby Constitution Bridge that true Venetians claim to avoid. Before 2008, only three historic bridges spanned the sinuous Grand Canal, invisible from each other. The Constitution became as unpopular for its slippery modern construction as this breach of tradition. He says the historic skyline was the reason for a submerged flooding solution, contrasting against the visible ones proposed by Dutch and British consultations. Carlo explains how the dredging of the lagoon to permit cruise ships boosts tidal surges. Cruise ships are unpopular as they disgorge thousands onto the honeypots around San Marco and little further; they dont stay and spend little. Hence the graffiti protesting: No grandi navi! For a brief moment, the prideful posturing of this Venetian lion evaporates and the gondoliers song becomes a lament. Venetians have a proverb: is the patch better than the tear? Quarantine With tourism zeroed and Moses trialled for the first time (promising to be fully operational this winter), the past year has been a reprieve for Venice from human and watery floods. Aptly, the Italian quaranta 40 (days confinement) is the origin of quarantine. An estimated 100,000+ who couldnt complete it are thought to lie on the lagoons mass grave on the abandoned island of Poveglia. Just outside the imposing gateway of the Arsenal, its a fair evening for naval graduation. Proud cadets stride from a giant sailing ship, flags cracking overhead, and toss their caps aloft. Unlike their forebears, the globe and sea increasingly come to them. Nearby, surrounded by tourists with selfie sticks, a street actor is dressed in the dark cloak and mask of a plague doctor - a topical blend of carnival and pandemic. Only now do I notice they also sport a pair of wellies. Tourists in a flooded St Marks Square An unconventional way to get to the shops Central Venice in October 2018 when passerelles elevated metal walkways were needed to get around the city Floodwaters in St Marks Square Floodwaters close in on the Church of San Giacomo di Rialto Shopping near Rialto Bridge in October 2018, when 90% of the city was under water
