Aqua Alta

If you're in Venice in the winter then be sure to take some wellington boots with you. In recent years Aqua Alta or high tide in Venice has had an increasing impact on the city's visitors and it pays to be prepared. The first clue we had that Venice was enjoying a spate of Aqua Alta was a picture of two men canoeing across St Mark's square in a magazine we'd read on the plane. However when we arrived in the city that evening the only sign that the city had been flooded the week before was the line of duckboards that ran down the far side of the square past the Basilica and the Doge's palace in the direction of the lagoon. Thinking we'd time our trip well, it wasn't until 3am the following night that we realised that Venice was under siege from the tide for most of the winter.

At 3am or thereabouts a bell started ringing rapidly, followed nearer dawn by an air-raid siren which shattered our sleep into tiny brittle pieces and we started wondering whether World War Three had started. When a grey dawn finally revealed itself I looked out of the window to see smartly dressed commuters in expensive rubber boots sloshing along the narrow street below.

The duckboards made sense we realised, and we left our hotel just in time, buying a pair of over-priced wellington boots from the shop next to the hotel along with a number of other tourists. St Mark's square was completely flooded and groups of tourists trod heavily alongside us on the duckboards. The only sign that the square ended and the lagoon began was a row of Gondolas tied to their posts. Everyone traipsed to the end of the duckboards and back, and then wandered along the remaining dry streets.

However as the water rises less and less of Venice becomes available to those without boots or boats. As we walked the streets, sometimes wading slowly, sometimes splashing briskly (but not too briskly) along we saw other visitors with their faces pressed to the hotel foyer windows unable to venture out until the water recedes. The average Venetian minimises the disruption to their lives by adapting. Rubber boots and raincoats seem to be essenziale for anyone who needs to be out and about in the mornings, while shop-keepers barricade themselves in behind makeshift barriers or behind shutters, though the serious businessman or businesswoman invests in marble flooring and stays open all day. Small cafés also stay open as their customers knock back espressos, shin-deep in water.

Once you get used to it the high tide becomes part of the adventure. Although there is a serious danger that Venice will one day disappear underneath the lagoon for good, by lunchtime the water has started to recede and by the end of the afternoon pigeons reclaim their rightful place from the seagulls in St Mark's square, and there is no sign that the city was flooded beyond the exposed metal legs of the duckboards and a few nervous tourists still reluctant to discard their green wellington boots.