Hotel Gallini

Consequently, there are no cars in Venezia. Well, there are, but only up to Piazzale Roma, where the road coming from terra firma (Mestre etc) ends and where busses and cars have to stop. All the traffic from here on is transferred onto the water. We, tourists and locals, are transported by vaporettos, gondolas or the expensive and unecological operating taxi boats. Post and parcels are being transported by boats, food is transported in boats, and any goods you can imagine are transported on the different boats. It is very much exciting to sit at one of the fondamentas or canales and watch the boats go by with their different loads. If you watch long enough, you can see how immense the variety of boats is, designed or built for the needs of their ?service?.
The boat on photo 1 is most probably one that transports building material. It was on its way to Isola San Michele, where the burial grounds are actually expanded. So this needs to be quite big and broad to be able to load up many bags of construction material.
Whenever canales need to be cleaned, or houses to be renovated or build, a crane is needed. Now at home or anywhere else on terra firma (solid ground), the crane is driven by truck in front of whereever it needs to operate. In Venezia, a special boat needs to transport them; photo 2. And given the weight of these cranes, the boats must be really solid ones. They looked like mixture between ferry and aircraft carrier (well, a small aircraft that would be). I was always amazed to see these boats navigating around. Given the weight and the height of the crane, the captains must have enormous skills. But then again this is Venezia, the people are so much used to live with the water.The more ?small? goods, like flowers (photo 3) or logs (photo 4), can easily be transported in small boats - to deliver directly in front of the house. Well, if the house is situated at the water. But this logboat also had a mini-crane to lift up the logs.
And last but not least the garbage. Venezia is very much advanced when it comes to garbage ?management?. Well, it has to, given the loads of us tourists that invade the city daily. Each household places the garbage bags outside at the doors. The garbage man comes in the morning and puts the bags and the ones of the countless bins into his wheel cart (photo 5). The photo is a bit dark, but it shows the cart, which has only 2 wheels. This is to make it easier to move over the countless bridges on the way. The cart is then emptied into the boat, again with a help of a small crane. During my early morning wanderings through the city I did see this procedure at several spots, so there is a well functioning system and specific garbage boat stops behind that. For the friends of Nobby I should add that the boat owner also had a friend travelling with him, you?ll see him if you look close at the boat?s bow.