1. Venice Roots & Origins
What Makes the ‘Floating City’ Float?
Perhaps one of the most interesting facts about Venice is how it began. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, Venetian merchants decided to protect themselves from barbaric raids by building a barricaded, floating city on nearby marshes. To this day, the support system used to keep the city elevated is still in use—wooden stakes or logs all taken from the forests of Slovenia, Croatia and Montenegro.