How does the building sink in Venice at the end of Casino Royale?
I’m pleased to tell you that your BS detector is functioning correctly. For anyone who knows anything about Venice, the ending of Casino Royale was just stupid in the extreme. The buildings in Venice (and everything else that’s dry land – streets, bridges, piazzas, etc.) are not actually built on “dry land” in the normal sense, but they’re definitely never held up by inflatables. Venice is built on some very low-lying marshy islands in the lagoon it sits in. More modern structures (like the huge parking lot outside the city proper) are built on concrete pilings driven into the bed of the lagoon, but all the old buildings are constructed on top of thousands of pilings made of alder wood, on top of which were placed oak planks and then slabs of rock. All this formed the foundation for buildings made in the more conventional way with brick or stone. Your BS detector was also right when it caused you to wonder about the depth of the Venetian canals. According to Wikipedia, the average dept
