Everyone knows
Canals of Venice.
Gondolas bobbing on
the Grand Canal, and a picturesquely decaying city sinking slowly into the waters of the Lagoon. And yet Venice is a city of many surprises and delights for the visitor. The first one is that you will spend most of your time walking – the pavements play as major a role in the city as do the canals. The one thing you won’t see is cars, drivers have to leave their vehicles at the city gate, and that makes exploring this romantic, art-filled and utterly unique city very enjoyable. And though tourists crowd the city, most of them head straight for the Basilica di San Marco and the
Doge’s Palace; a little trip off the beaten track yields huge rewards, as you nip down narrow alleys and find beautiful little churches, street markets and yet another canal before you.
Hunters and fishermen were living on the mudflats of
the Lagoon 2000 years ago, but Venice really grew as a place of refuge. The ravaging of
Attila the Hun drove many to seek shelter here in the fifth century, and a century later the march of the
Lombards into northern Italy saw more settle here. By now the city was ruled by
Byzantium, but in 726 Venetians elected their own leader,
the first Doge (or Duke).
Our early work in the canals and lagoon of Venice was directed toward public health issues. In order to evaluate the degree of organic pollution in the area, petroleum hydrocarbons, chlorinated hydrocarbons and fecal sterols were analyzed in sediment and mussel samples (Mytilus galloprovincialis). Although the canals in Venice are at least partially flushed by tides, most canals still
have mud bottoms which are ideal for preservation of chemical pollutants. Petroleum hydrocarbon contamination has been observed in essentially all areas except the Northern Adriatic. Highest hydrocarbon concentrations have been found near the industrial zone of Porto Marghera followed by decreasing concentrations in the Venetian canals and Veneto Lagoon. Based upon alkylated homolog distributions of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, fossil fuel combustion appears to be the major source of these hydrocarbons. Chlorinated hydrocarbons were present in a wide range of concentrations. The spatial distribution of these compounds (HCB, HCH, DDT and PCB) could be clearly correlated with local inputs. The fecal sterol, coprostanol, was analyzed to evaluate the accumulation dispersal of untreated waste from the city of Venice. Coprostanol “hotspots†gave indications of where health hazards may exist for local populations. All contaminants generally showed much higher
concentrations in the interior canals of Venice, and lower concentrations in the outer edges of the city and Lagoon. This was clearly related to reduced tidal flushing in the interior canals. Mussels and sediments show similar trends in the contaminant distributions, however due to a variety of environmental stresses, mussels are completely absent from the interior canals where the highest contaminant levels have been observed. Accumulation studies have shown that over a period of 20 years the levels of petroleum contamination have decreased with time, due to reduction of industrial inputs resulting from increased environmental legislation, and to initiating an aggressive dredging program within the interior canals.
In part one of the Grand Canal pages, I present several “panoramic” views. Not pictures of specific buildings, but pictures that try to express the variety of architecture, of form and color along the Grand Canal. For the most part, the view along the canal is little changed over the last several hundred years. The buildings, and the sweeping view of the canal are not much different now than they were 400 years ago, except for the boats and other trappings of modern life.
When To Go
It’s almost always high season in Venice, although the city is busiest in spring< 
(Easter-June) and Sept-Oct. Accommodation can be hard to find then, as well as around Christmas, New Year and Carnevale (February). Like Italy’s other great tourist hubs, Venice is at its worst in high summer (June-August): it’s crowded, oppressively hot and sticky. The most pleasant time of year to visit is late March into May, with clear spring days and comparatively fewer crowds. September is the next best in terms of weather, but October is quieter. Flooding occurs in November and December, and winter can be unpleasantly cold – although seeing Venice under snow can be the stuff of fairy tales.
