One of the main reasons to visit Venice is to take a ride in a gondola along the city’s many canals. With its picturesque setting, it is a journey on which many couples have fallen in love and proposals have even taken place.
Yet, the City of Water is reportedly drying up.
Although winter is Italy’s wet season, the country has been experiencing notably dry weather over the last few weeks. The situation has led to concerns that a drought may be on the cards.
“We are in a water deficit situation that has been building up since the winter of 2020-2021,” said a climate expert from Italian scientific research institute CNR, Massimiliano Pasqui. “We need to recover 500 millimetres in the north-western regions: we need 50 days of rain.”
Venice, in particular, has been affected by the bizarre weather. Flooding is a normally a worry in the canal-lined city, but due to the lack of rain, the opposite has occurred. Low tides are making it near impossible for gondolas, water taxis, and ambulances to travel along the main canals.
This has resulted in some ambulance boats having to stop farther from their destination, forcing medical crews to sometimes hand carry stretchers over long distances. Tourists have also been unable to venture on gondolas through some of the waterways, preventing them from navigating through the car-less city.