Omnibus – To Venice through the floods

WELLIES are what the well-dressed Venetian lady or gentleman is wearing these days. It doesn't chime with the vaunted Italian sense of style, but when you live in a city where the main street is a canal, and water pervades every aspect of your life, practicality rules. This is the season of acqua alta â€â€ high water â€â€ when a combination of a spring tide and a southern wind pushes the Adriatic Sea right up against its northern shore, of which Venice is the jewel. The city and its citizens are well prepared: raised walkways are erected on the principal thoroughfares and the wellingtons stand inside the front doors.[private] As for the tourists, just as umbrella sellers materialise with unexpected rain in the more commonplace destinations, in Venice you will suddenly find vendors of cheap rubber boots. They also sell even more ephemeral items, like vaguely boot-shaped plastic bags which, when paired with an over-sized rubber sandal, give some protection. Just don't expect them to last the winter. But Venice is not called La Serenissima for nothing. The Most Serene (former) Republic seems a delight to spend time in whatever the weather. Although, my two experiences having been in February ten years ago, and just now in November, I can't vouch for high summer and maximum tourist numbers. Last week there was something magical and otherworldly about the place. The water lapped within centimetres of the canal-side paths, it gurgled around doorways giving straight on to the water, its green sheen a counterpoint to the ochre and terracotta colours of the palazzos and humbler homes that gaze on it. If you got away from the main tourist and shopping streets between the Piazzale Roma and San Marco, just a few steps brought you into a quieter space where all of a sudden you got a glimpse of what it was like to be in a world which had not been invaded by the internal combustion engine. Amazing!â€Ë†Streets where all you heard was the shuffle of footsteps and the murmur of multiple conversations. No grumble of traffic; no screech of brakes; no sudden roars from accelerating engines; no blasting of horns. As darkness fell you had the sense of having crossed a time warp, and at any moment a figure in a cape and a tricorn hat might sidle up to you with a secret message from a donna in distress. â€Â¢ â€Â¢ â€Â¢ THEâ€Ë†excuse for going to Venice this time (in addition to it being my birthday week) was the Architectural Biennale. The Irish pavilion had got good notices, and why not see it? The theme of this year's Biennale was 'Common Ground' and there was a huge emphasis on green building, re-use of abandoned spaces, and bringing people together. Many of the exhibits were highly conceptual and abstract, and the Irish one by Heneghan Peng was no exception. But it had the saving grace of bringing a smile to the faces of the people who experienced it. Briefly, it consisted of three pairs of beams which moved, somewhat like an assymetric see-saw, when you sat on them. But the beams in a pair were interlinked, so that when three people had achieved a balance on one, someone sitting on the other could make the whole thing sway unpredictably again. As a symbol of interconnectedness and mutual dependency it worked very well for the average visitor, while the professional could read the accompanying data and take in the deeper technical and philosophical implications. â€Â¢ â€Â¢ â€Â¢ THE best and cheapest way to see Venice from the water is to get a multi-day ticket for the transport system. Where we have buses they have vaporettos, passenger ferries which ply the canals and the lagoon. You can glide down the Grand Canal and marvel at the elaborately decorated palazzos, and you can do as we did and cross the lagoon to the Lido, where in the summer the beaches are crammed from tideline to promenade. On November 1 the sun shone and a family of children disported themselves in the surf. We walked the width of the narrow island and, seeing a gazebo perched high over the roof of a small hotel, asked if we could climb up to it. The views were amazing, and if you feel like seeing them for yourself, just click on www.hotelvilladellepalme.com â€â€ the smiling receptionist, Christiano, said they have very good low-season deals. â€Â¢ â€Â¢ â€Â¢ FOR the second time I did not get inside San Marco, because the queues were too long. But we did visit the magnificent Ca' Rezzonico, with its wonderful painted ceilings and opulent rooms, and saw paintings of the social life of 18th century Venice, including Il Gigante Magrat. Could this be the Giant McGrath? We might find out next week. â€â€ David Burke[/private]