Tons of muck flows into the canals each day, and gives the crumbling back-quarters of Venice the peculiar stink-half drainage, half rotting stone-that so repels the queasy tourist, but gives the Venetian amateur a perverse and reluctant pleasure. Add to this the dust, vegetable peel, animal matter and ash that pours into every waterway, in defiance of the law, over balconies and down the back steps, and it is easy to conceive how thickly the canal-beds are coated with refuse. If you look down from a terrace when the tide is low, you can see an extraordinary variety of rubble and wreckage beneath the water, gleaming with spurious mystery through the green; and it is horrible to observe how squashily the poles go in, when a pile-driver begins its hammering in a canal.
Jan Morris, VENICE
I have seen an aqua alta but never quite this bad. The Academia still not finished (sale?) after 5&6-after 3years-so I could not see my favourites, Bellini, Mantegna and Piero de la F. However the weather is fine and warm and the food is great and prosecco is cool. Went to the 500 years of palladio at Vicenza (main reason for trip)-fantastic exhibition. Will reply to your email on my return. So sorry for delay but I was caught by all sorts of conflicting emotions and I hate e-mails except for business. Must try harder!! A presso. Father
