Villa Berghinz

So why am I writing about all that ? Just to make aware how much of effort it is to keep a place "running", which is entirely built ?on water?. While preparing my trip, I found so many negative remarks about the city, that it is smelly in summer, has acqua alta all the time, is expensive and is one single tourist trap.
Well, again, it costs a huge amount of effort and money to keep the city functioning. The goods for preparing meals need to be transported by boat, and then in wheel carts (similar principle as described above) over bridges and through the small calles. That?s very much ?manpower? intense. And as this is Italy, and not a so-called third world country, people?s salaries are not that low to give us special deals on meals as in say Uzbekistan or Tajikistan.
Electricity, clean water, the possibility to pull the string in the bathroom and get rid of our human waste ? this all requires specifically designed mechanisms to transport to and from the houses and the hotels. The water, now with a higher oxygen content than before we masses have started to invade the city, gnaw at the houses and require a much more frequent restoration than in La Serenissima?s past days.

Or take the gondolas. Yes, a ride in a gondola is expensive ! A licence to navigate a gondola costs around 70.000 Euro, the gondola itself is not a mass product where thousands hop from the belt every evening. It takes some months to finish a gondola (as by now there are not many artists left, who master the building), and then it costs around 40.000 Euros. As hardly anyone wants to take a gondola ride in winter, the guys have only several months, maybe 6 or 7, to work. And if in the past days one gondola was passed on from father to son and maybe grandson, this is no longer the case today. Again, the very much high oxygen content (thus algae) requires a much more frequent repair and care for the boats. By now, the life cycle of a gondola is not longer than maybe 25 to 30 years.
Oh, and a fiaker ride in Vienna costs 100 Euro per hour ? does anybody complain about that ? It is easy: if it is too expensive, then just leave it, but stop complaining.

Acqua alta ? yes, it is more frequent today than in the past. And parts of the reason are the deep navigation channels that have been digged into the lagoon to enable the oil tankers a shortcut to the plants in Maestre. But also to enable these ?. cruise ships to come close and sail through the lagoon.

Or the toilet fees. Yes, we have to pay a toilet fee (if we didn?t buy the Venice Blue or Orange card, or use the ones of a restaurant when we have lunch or dinner or a coffee). Public toilets do cost 1 Euro per ?nose powdering?. But the money is paid for a good reason. And of course it is us, who have to pay ? no one would expect the Venezianos to pay for our nature calls, would one ?? And apart from that, in other European cities we also have to pay, and also quite a ?nice? amount. In some German towns the fees in cities or at highways are also as much as around 0,70 Euro.

Please remember this all before you want to rant about the prices, smells, and other things.