I borrowed a little Venetian boat, a sandolo. My friend’s Mamma watched from her window over the canal, perhaps a bit apprehensively, as I rowed by in the slender vessel, silently gliding over the glassy waterways that crisscross Venice….
From Chapter 3 – Scenes
Climate change may force Venice to face unimaginably hard choices, between saving the world heritage city and saving the lagoon. But this raises scary unknowns… How can you pull apart nature and man thoroughly intertwined for so many centuries without destroying them?
From Chapter 11- Origins
Traditional history surrounding these early beginnings early in the first millennium is based on self-serving origin stories touting alleged Roman origins. … Recent archaeology tells us a very different story; Venice was in reality less Roman more a pirate nation than many like to admit.
From Chapter 16 – Synanthropes
These omnivorous birds have even been known to pick off the odd rat, sparrow, swift, swallow or pigeon. They spark exclamations of horror at dinner parties over extraordinary incidents where they have made a meal of chihuahuas, puppies and kittens.
From Chapter 17 – Abandoned
Woody vines crawl over the facades; collapsed roofs clutter the floors with debris and let sunlight and rain fall into the rooms and corridors still painted in unappealing, institutional pea green. No wonder novelists, film and TV producers and writers have adopted the island…
