Acqua Alta

When Venice Went Under on our Anniversary

The acqua alta hit on our wedding anniversary. Here, the area near the Rialto Bridge is flooding. Image: Ann Marie Ackermann

I didn’t check the tide schedule when I booked our hotel room.

And why should I? There are tons of fun things to experience in Venice. I was thinking of gondolas when I clicked the button for our online reservation. The acqua alta never occurred to me.

We were spending half a week in the floating city to celebrate our 20^th wedding anniversary. The hotel gave us a tide table when we checked in, and that’s where I made the discovery. The acqua alta would help us celebrate! Venice expected a tide of 120 cm, enough to put 29% of the city – including our hotel – under.

Now I’m so glad we experienced it, because the acqua alta has become a thing of the past. Italy’s new tide barriers in the Adriatic Sea stop the flooding in Venice. That we were among the last people to see the water spill over the canals made for a unique, and now historic, anniversary.

So here’s the story of our wild, wet wedding anniversary.

Acqua alta

Venice prepares

Water lapping over the edge of a canal. Image: Ann Marie Ackermann

The tides in the northern part of the Adriatic Sea have been flooding Venice for at least a thousand years. High tide was scheduled to peak at 9:25 p.m. Street vendors were already selling rubber boots that afternoon.

St. Mark’s Square is the lowest point in Venice and floods first, when the tide reaches 82 cm. But the Rialto bridge area, where our hotel was, is often second. It floods at 105 cm.

A man standing on the stairs to the Rialto Bridge and photographing the acqua alta. Image: Ann Marie Ackermann

We lingered at the Grand Canal in front of our hotel. The water gradually reached street level, and just before it started flowing over, an alarm sounded throughout the city. It is set to go off when the water reaches 110 cm.

The sound galvanized all the shop owners. They came out onto the street, carrying wooden planks and iron stands. A within a few minutes, they assembled a pedestrian gangway. The gangways are 120 cm above sea level, and on the night of our anniversary, only just above the water level.

How Venetians handled the acqua alta

Pedestrians moved from the sidewalks to the gangway. The water taxis were still running and people took the gangways to the station, but the Rialto station eventually slipped under water. You needed rubber boots if you wanted to take the water taxi!

The gangway in front of the Rialto water taxi station on the morning after. Image: Ann Marie Ackermann

Our hotel prepared for flooding in the lobby. Image: Ann Marie Ackermann

In the meantime, our hotel pulled out wooden blocks and placed them under the leg of each piece of furniture in the lobby.

Water starts seeping under the hotel door into the lobby. Image: Ann Marie Ackermann

Venice goes under

Water began seeping under the hotel door and inching its way through the lobby. We tiptoed through it, clambered onto the gangway, and walked out into a water world. Not only were the streets along the Grand Canal now flooded, but the water was flowing down the side streets. We wandered down those side street gangways until we reached a square where a concert was being held. Classical music! Normally I would have purchased tickets, but this one time I didn’t want to miss nature’s show.

Gangway at the Rialto water taxi station. Image: Ann Marie Ackermann

Yikes! The Rialto water taxi station is under water! You need your rubber boots! Image: Ann Marie Ackermann

Back at the hotel, we scrambled up to the balcony overlooking the Grand Canal and marveled at how the Venetians were still doing business as usual.

The morning after

The next morning I got up early to walk the streets. Had the acqua alta washed up fish? Was there any evidence left of the night before? Some gangways were still up. Everything else seemed normal, but I did seem to notice more birds than usual. This gorgeous egret was one of them, right on the Grand Canal.

This egret was fishing on the Grand Canal the morning after. Did the acqua alta wash in a few delicacies for the avian life? Image: Ann Marie Ackermann

MOSE: Acqua alta is no more

Well, almost no more.

To protect the city, Italy has been working on a massive dam made of mobile barriers. It’s called MOSE, a play on the Italian word for Moses, and it stands for Modulo Sperimentale Elettromeccanico. When high tide reaches 110 cm, barriers go up that keep the water from entering the Venetian Lagoon. That means St. Mark’s Square will still get a little flooding and the streets along the Rialto Bridge might see 5 cm of water, but nothing like it used to be.

MOSE went into operation in 2020 and was successful. A tide of 135 cm brought a just few puddles around the drains in St. Mark’s Square.

We were in Venice only four years prior to that – the last four years of the unhindered acqua alta. And that will remain a lasting memory of our trip.

Have you ever been to Venice? What did you do there?

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