To start with, I have never heard of flood in Venice. Apparently this is something you don’t see in the news as it is very common in the city.
That day was raining heavily. Heavily enough to wet the insides of my waterproof backpack but fortunately nothing I was keeping in it. My laptop and camera were safe. Maybe if we stayed outside for 30 more minutes all of it would have been damaged.
We came back to the hotel to eat our takeaway food and get a quick nap. An hour or so later, awake but still in bed, we heard a siren. I thought it could be the fire alarm but it sounded distant. After a quick check in google, It turns out to be the Venice civil siren warning everyone for the incoming “Acqua Alta (High water).
As you can see in this video, it is something people are prepared for as it is a predictable event, but as a tourist, I can tell you it is not very helpful for your holiday if you don’t have high wellies… even higher wellies! 🙂
Our current situation was that we are in the hotel, ready to go out, but we couldn’t (remember the wellies?). I could hear the other guests coming in downstairs, trying to make their way thru the water, complaining of the freezing conditions and wet shoes.
I had a quick catch with one of them and he said they basically took of their shoes and socks as there was no point having them 🙂
The good news was that we still had some takeaway pasta left with a bottle of wine and this was going to save us from starving in the evening 🙂
I hope this situation gets better during the night as we have a plain to catch tomorrow and we have to leave the hotel before lunch. The flights won’t be affected as Treviso is not under water, but I guess it won’t be good if we have to take 45 min walk from our hotel to the bus station making our way thru a meter deep water.
Update at 00:50 – On the live webcams it looks like the water level is going down so we will definitely be okay in the morning, leaving early and doing last round around Venice for souvenir shopping before heading to the airport.
