Squero San Trovaso - "There's a Hole in the Floor!"

Part of the gondola building and maintenance process requires squerarioli to flip the boat over so they can get to the underside.

You'd think they would do this all above ground, but no, not the Venetians.

They dig a hole in the floor so the whole operation is lower to the ground.

Sure, you could set up planks, and do all your work from higher up, but for various reasons they prefer this method.

I'm just spitballing here, but do you think some old grouchy gondola builder fell off a plank centuries ago and made a new rule from that day forward? It could happen.

With a sprained ankle and a bruised ego, an angry guy with a shovel could dig a hole pretty quickly.

Squero San Trovaso - Wood to Weather

I remember hearing a story once about an old American Indian elder who went into the forest with his grandson to choose a tree branch that they could carve into a flute.
After selecting the right one, they cut the branch from the tree and brought it back home. The boy prepared his hand tools, eager to begin crafting the branch into a musical instrument, but the old man stopped him, saying:
"wait, we need to let the wood rest a while".

When I heard that story I was much younger, and to be honest I just figured it was one of those Native American spiritualism things. Over the years though, as I've spent some time getting to know wood and it's many personality traits, I've realized that there was a much more practical side to what the tribal elder said to his grandson.

Wood grows, solid and strong as part of a living organism.
It is well hydrated, maintaining a certain amount of moisture.
Then, when the tree comes down and the wood is cut into boards, the whole world changes for those tightly knit cellulose fibers.

When wood comes to Venice and is delivered at a squero, the boards are laid out carefully to "season". The squerarioli who use them want to make sure the boards have gotten any movement out of their system. When wood is immediately used, it can sometimes do strange things. It can have a mind of it's own, bending or splitting in ways that could affect the bouyancy of a vessel.

Visit any squero in Venice and you're likely to see wood "resting", before it finds new life as part of a beautiful boat. In english speaking circles some say "let's allow the wood to weather a bit first".

The wood you see in this stack may very well be the same wood you see a few years from now - fashioned into different parts of a magnificent gondola, all black and shiny as she glides down the Grand Canal.

I wonder if it will miss being part of a tree then.
perhaps I'm attributing too much personality to the wood.
Or maybe it's that tiny sliver of Chippewa Indian in me coming out from high up in my own family tree.

Squero San Trovaso - Wrapped-Up Rowing Gear

I've seen this before:
the forcola, remo, and dock-lines from a gondola - all wrapped together.
It's a great way to keep them together, and while a forcola and remo in Southern California are quite unique, in a squero like San Trovaso, I can see the need to keep them together.
Each gondolier has his own rowing gear.
Imagine how easily a forcola could get lost in a place like San Trovaso or one of the other squeri.
Rowing clubs often do similar things to keep the rowing gear for each boat together.

If you have a sharp eye, you might be able to spot the lucky horseshoe in the shot.

Squero San Trovaso - Balcony in Bloom

Here's a shot I took of the residence in Squero San Trovaso in spring. Just like the mountain homes in Il Cadore, the balcony has flowers along it's rail.