One miraculous December, I went to Venezia to… well, to celebrate my birthday with a splash. Venice is a great place to do this, especially if you go off season and avoid the crowds at San Marco or Rialto. But when the acqua alta comes, San Marco is exactly the place to be: a gigantic, surreal mirror revealing the magical counterpart of everything. yourself included.
Some facts, wikipedia style: Acqua alta is the term used in Veneto for the exceptional tide peaks that occur periodically in the northern Adriatic Sea The peaks reach their maximum in the Venetian Lagoon. The phenomenon occurs mainly between autumn and spring, when the astronomical tides are reinforced by the prevailing seasonal winds which hamper the usual reflux. The main winds involved are the scirocco, which blows northbound along the Adriatic Sea, and the bora, which has a specific local effect due to the shape and location of the Venetian lagoon.
Regular scientific record-keeping of lagoonal water levels is considered to have begun in 1872, although some researchers suggest pushing this date to 1867, when an exceptional event (153 cm above sea level) was measured.
