Venice, the city of water

Venice is a bunch of islands connected together by bridges and canals.  The city was started when barbarians from the north attacked the Roman Empire and the people of Aquilea retreated to the islands for safety. There they founded Venice. Because they could not build houses on the sand and mud, Venetians struck logs into the ground.  Then they put platforms made of wood or marble on top of the logs. These logs do not rot because there is no oxygen in the salty and sandy water so the bacteria and fungus that makes wood rot cannot grow.  The salt water petrifies the wood as it goes through it and makes the wood hard like stone.

In Venice, people use boats for transportation. One kind of boat that they use is called the gondola. Gondolas are flat so that they can go into the shallow waters of the canals.  But because it is flat, it can easily tip over, so in the front of the boat there is a large piece of metal called the ferro. The ferro keeps the front of the gondola level while the gondolier rows the boat from the back. On the back of the boat there is a decoration similar to the ferro called the risso.  Finally, one side of the gondola is heavier and wider than the other so that when the gondolier is rowing on the other side the boat won’t tip over.

The wood for the gondola is specially picked out.  There cannot be knots in the wood and it cannot be bumpy.  The gondolas are made of eight different kinds of wood:  oak, fir, cherry, larch, walnut, linden, mahogany, and elm. They use different kinds of wood because each wood is best for a different part of the boat. Walnut is used for the frame because it bends well when soaked in water, whereas Larch is used for the bottom of the boat because it is water resistant.

If you visit Venice you can see people regularly using boats as cars, going on bridges over canals and building houses on the water. Now you can appreciate the hard work that goes into building the city and making boats for transportation.