Wading in Dorsoduro

A beautiful cancel with high water.

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The morning began at 8 AM with a siren. A long one. Then five single tone blasts. That is the city's warning system of Acqua Alta...high water flooding. The lowest stage is a single tone blast as we heard. From there, they use a two-tone or a three-tone blast. We were in for flooding, but knew not just how much.

The weather report, heavy rain, was spot on, so our tour of the Dorsoduro section of Venice involved some wading. Literally. Along the canals, the water was just at the edge of the sidewalks, and often, the wake of passing motor boats sent waves over them. One section had a puddle so deep it went over the top of one of my (Stew) shoes, so I squished along for the rest of the day.

Looking across the canal to St Marco from the Dorsoduro

Dorsoduro is largely residential, but to get out of the rain, we opted to tour the Gallerie dell'Accademia, "the largest museum in Venice." It's great if you want to tour just a few rooms of mostly religious painting that are so dimly lit and in need of cleaning that you have to examine their signs to know what they are. But at least it was dry and somewhat heated, a welcome relief from the bone-chilling damp cold outside.

Ca' Renzzonico (Falier Palazzo)

Bob did take a photo of the Doge's Palace from the end of the Dorsoduro point just beyond Santa Maria d. Salute (a church that was actually free!), and on the way back from the other side of the Grand Canal, he photographed the beautiful Renzzonico Palace that we visited yesterday (reportedly the concept for Donna Leon's Brunetti's palazzo for his in-laws, the Faliers. Earlier in the day, we stopped at Pantagruelica, a gourmet shop in Campo St. Barnaba that Donna Leon said had the best bread in Venice. It must have been sold out by the time we got there.

Somewhere along the way, I (Stew) developed a blister on the upper part of my heel, probably as a result of all the squishing I'd had to do, so it was a relief when we finally made it back to our hotel.

During our wet meanderings, we made a point to find La Fenice...the Venice Opera House. It burned down completely in January 1994 and was not reopened until November 2004. Like most projects in Italy (and America) is was delayed and troubled by politics. However, it is now "the way it was, where it was." The pictures show the original water entrance and the new land entrance. Remarkable.

Theater buffs will find the home web site interesting:

 http://www.teatrolafenice.it/index.php