Incredible, but true: Venice had a water issue.
In the past, like today, there surely wasn’t a lack of water in the town’s channels, but the problem was drinking water. Rainwater was collected in wells and purified for drinking and cooking, but since its price was low and sanitation was better, wine was often the top choice of Venetians, and the city’s roads still show it.
The street Calle dei Boteri honors an ancient profession, the botero, who’s job was to build and repair wine barrels. An old door of a building in Calle dell'Arco is truly barrel-shaped: its widened outline, rounded at the bottom, allowed a snug passage of the wine casks.
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