I was in Venice a couple weeks ago, as a part of that 7-day cruise I told you about. It was my first time in Venice and as a result I couldn’t comment if what I was seeing was normal or not. Turns out it wasn’t.

Before the flooding came to my attention, something that did impress me, as we strolled into the world’s most famous ‘water city,’ was a guy standing on the very first bridge you walk over towards St. Mark’s Square – a natural first photo op for romantic couples. I was trying to do the classic reverse-photo with one arm trick, to get a pic of The Muse and me. So this guy comes up to me and asks if I would like him to take the pic for us. He seemed quite clean and well-mannered, so I handed over the iPhone. He had good iPhone photo skills and, after asking us to remove our shades for the pic, he nailed three fantastic shots. One landscape, one full-length portrait, and one tight shot. He gave the phone back and once I had thanked him he said, “It’s a pleasure – any spare change would be greatly appreciated.”Wow, I thought to myself – what an ingenious homeless person! I gladly gave him two Euros and carried on. I wonder why Cape Town’s begging fraternity don’t think to do the same thing? Perhaps the concept of handling an iPhone, only to give it back again will prove too difficult? Will temptation ultimately take over? Who knows. One thing is for sure, there is a great opportunity for enterprising homeless people the world over to make an extra buck!

So we cruise into St. Mark’s Square, and had to walk along a raised wooden pathway – literally like a walkway on stilts. ‘Surely this isn’t normal,’ I remember thinking to myself. We both agreed that there was a serious problem. I made a point of taking some photos of the various crazy visuals. Entire restaurants standing empty, because the outside area was flooded. Locals walking around in gumboots, choosing some roads over others, knowing that the end would be blocked by water. We were shocked, to be honest, and decided it simply must be due to global warming.

We walked deeper into Venice, where there was less flooding and hitched a EUR100 ride on a gondola (or ‘gondanolia,’ if you’re in my family). Our gondola man was very cool and took us on a 45 minute ride to Harry’s Bar, taking in some awesome sights and sounds. The front of the gondola has a sharp point and there was a moment when I had to climb to the front of the boat, to add weight and get the point low enough to make it under the bridges When I asked our guy what the plan was with regards to Venice sinking, he laughed it of. “Venice has had problems like this every year for hundreds of years,” he said. “It’s just high-tide – nobody is worried.”

Hmm, I think our boy is being overly half-glass-full minded, as just this last week it was reported that flooding in Venice has become out of control. Read here for more on that.

Turns out my initial shock was justified.

I managed to get some pics for you to check out what we saw, which was pretty surprising. It should be noted that later that day the flooding was gone and the same restaurants and coffee shops were trading as usual!

Thanks for tuning in and click here if you want to find out how they were able to build Venice in the first place.