Will My Feet Get Wet?
I get nervous standing in St. Mark’s Square, AKA Piazza San Marco.
When will the water rise?
Called “acqua alta”, the Venice tide rises about 100 times a year lasting 3 to 4 hours in mid-day and again at night. The tides range from 80cm (31.5”) affecting 5% of Venice to 55.11”, a rarity, that impacts 59% of the city.
MOSE Italian for “Moses”, and short for Modulo Sperimentale Elettromeccanico, or Experimental Electromechanical Model. In the works since 1984 and delayed due to politics and corruption, the system will be completed this year. It’s an integrated system consisting of rows of mobile barriers installed on the seafloor that can be raised to temporarily seal off the Venetian Lagoon from the Adriatic Sea during acqua alta high tides.
Venice isn’t a floating city, albeit it appears as such. It’s a city built on a waterlogged lagoon built on wooden platforms supported by wooden stakes. Since Venice dates back to 421 AD and the fall of the Romain Empire, that sounds like a long time for wood posts to support a city of 257,000+ residents for 1600 years.
But that’s not how it works.
Early Venetians drove wooden stakes 13 – 26 feet long into the mud on the clay bottom of the lagoon floor. The stakes are made of alder wood imported from Montenegro, Croatia and Slovenia by boat. Wooden platforms were assembled on top of the pencil shaped stakes. Saltwater prohibits microorganisms from multiplying and allows salt and additional minerals to harden the wood making it as strong as stone.
We’re not talking about a handful of structural stakes. It was millions. Experts report that a million+ stakes were used as the foundation of the Santa Maria Della Salute church.
Venice’s canals were carved out of the lagoon marsh that long ago without the aid of machinery. Most of the canals are about 6.5 feet deep and others as deep as 16 feet. They were lined with alder wood stakes to prevent earth from sliding down.
Environmentalists report that Venice is sinking 1-2 millimeters a year, the same as New York City. Some predict that Venice could be at risk as early as 2100.
But for now we have MOSE and Venice has installed elevated walkways in the lowest part of the city to make it safe to move around during high tide. Also the ACTV vaporetto service operates as usual during acqua alta. Venice residents are alerted to the rising tide via SMS and sirens blast to alert crowds too.
Pack your wellies when traveling to Venice if there’s even a suggestion that high tide might become higher tide. And enjoy the world’s most romantic city.