Veince 2.....

Category: My latest Europe trip | Posted: Fri Oct 21, 2005 12:40 pm

An interesting point about Venice is that the effluent from the homes empties directly into the canals! They suggest that you do not drink the water! Each evening the tide cleanses the canals and washes everything out to sea. (Well, that's the theory anyway!)

There is one main canal, quite wide, and all the smaller canals are taken off from that. There are also MANY bridges to enable foot traffic between sections.

Unfortunately, Venice is a 'dying city'. This is because there is little employment opportunity in Venice itself, so all the young people tend to move away. Therefore Venice is comprised mainly of elderly folk.

Also, all of the buildings in Venice are heritage listed. Which means that they cannot be modified in any way, not even painted! Which makes it very difficult as far as maintenance is concerned. House prices in Venice are very cheap (compared to other parts of the country). You can buy a house there for around 1/2 the price of elsewhere, but you can't do anything to it!

Venetians are petitioning the government at this time to repeal much of the heritage listed sites, but it seems to be falling on deaf ears.

Many of the streets are very narrow, usually only 2 people wide. They were never intended for heavy foot traffic.

To enable furniture delivery, etc, each house has a strong hook above its highest point.

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