Cross the little canal called the Rio di San Trovaso, in the Dorsoduro quarter of Venice, and you come upon something that looks as though it wandered down from the Alps and lost its way among the palaces: a cluster of low wooden buildings with sloping roofs and open galleries, more mountain chalet than lagoon house, with a sloping yard of bare earth running straight down into the water.
Gondolas lie tipped on their sides in that yard, black hulls gleaming like the backs of whales, and now and then a man in a work apron moves among them with a plane or a torch. This is the Squero di San Trovaso, and it is one of the last places on earth where a gondola is still built, from the keel up, entirely by hand.
