- Italy’s Venice is the best known sinking city, but did you know that there are many others as well including Bangkok and Mexico City
- The buildings of Venice are built on closely spaced wooden pilings which have petrified over the centuries in the oxygen-poor water of the lagoon to become like stone
- Contrary to popular belief the gondolas of Venice are “rowed” with a forward stroke and then a backward stroke and not “”poled”” off the bottom as the water is too deep
- Amsterdam, Brugge, and St. Petersburg have all been called the “Venice of the North”
- Bangkok was once called the “Venice of the East” though many canals have now been filled in
- Venezuela means “Little Venice” and was so named by explorers who found houses sitting over water supported by poles
- Gondolas are used mainly by tourists and are not a practical means of transportation
- The oldest film festival in the world began in 1932 in Venice
