Some years ago, before Over the Hill was published, a mentor suggesting I don't write about anything you might see on the telly. So, given that pictures of Venice are everywhere, I thought I'd give you a different view or two.
Have you every wondered how all that stuff - the food, the goods in the shops, the furniture in your hotel room - arrived? Anywhere but Venice, it comes on a lorry, or van, or maybe you trot off to the shop and can carry it yourself (though the shop has to get it from somewhere.) In Venice, of course, it's much more complicated. For everything comes by boat. Anything heavy is lifted off by a small crane.
While boxes of strawberries are hauled up one box at a time.
Then what? Well, big things like tables fold up and go on a trolley.
And heavy things, like barrels of beer, have to be wheeled through the streets - these trolleys have special little wheels at the front so they can go up and down the stepped bridges without the driver rupturing himself.
And, at the end of the day, comes the rubbish man, with another wheelie trolley, to take away the detritus that is left behind.
And in my next blog, I've got some photographs of some of the extraordinary things that come into this city on boats!
