Perhaps Atlantis?

                                                           

As for Venice....

It is like nothing I have ever seen, every bit full of the romanic and picturesque scenes in movies, posters, and postcards.  The crumbling buildings along the waterside take you back in time to wonder just how much more beautiful Venice could have ever been in its earliest days of splendor.  The sight of gondolas, while indeed touristy, never gets old for me, and I long to be transported back in time when they (and perhaps sailboats--my other favorites) were all that traversed those waterways.  [Side note: gondolas do NOT have to cost 100 euros. We crossed a canal for the cost of 1 EURO EACH in a gondola manned by two men. While it was not a tour at sunset in the romantic embrace of a lover, 

nor lounging in the luxuriously guilt and upholstered seats of the tourist gondolas, I can now say that I have INDEED ridden in a gondola in Venice, and that is enough for me... until I marry that Italian and he picks up the cost.]  

We did experience the not-so-uncommon phenomenon of the flooding of Venice while in the city, and after having thought that it was a once-a-year occurrence, were shocked to find nothing being done to prevent the water from creeping its way up the stairs of St. Mark's Basilica or inching its ways below artwork in museums with nothing but gates for doors.  The sirens sounding, my friend turned to me perplexed, "Aren't those the sirens you read about in that travel book?" "No, couldn't be... or could it? St. Mark's was flooding up from beneath the ground just an hour ago." With the streets filling with police, we posed the question one officer and found that we were correct in our presumptions. We were the only panicked individuals, or seemingly so, as we ran past a flooded Piazza di San Marco, avoiding the sewage smelling water at our heels.  The water was not just rising up from beneath the ground, but also licking the walkways along the waterfront with huge waves, making the avoidance of getting wet impossible.

  After running frantically for an hour to find the water bus that would get us safely back to the hostel, we came to the depressing conclusion that in the not-so-distant future, Venice will be our modern Atlantis.  Its paintings disintegrated by the lapping water, all that would remain would be its splendid mosaics and architecture, hinting at its once colorful splendor, then reduced to white stone with green algae accents.   If global warming and the melting of the polar ice-caps threatening the existence of California does not bother you, think on the disappearance of Venice, and the loss of its unmatched beauty.