O Solo Frio: Venice's Famed Canals Turn to Ice in European Deep Freeze

The famed canals of Venice, Italy, have fallen victim to the current European Deep Freeze and have frozen over, making it difficult for traffic to pass through the waterways of the beautiful, historic city.

Many of the city's vaporettos, water buses, were left stranded in the frozen waters, leaving tourists and residents alike without transportation. Venice, famed for its picturesque canals and waterways, relies on water traffic to transport people, as there are no roads and cars serve no purpose. Water pipes broke in the frigid temperatures as well, and over sixty-thousand people were left without power in Milan, where officials have declared a gas shortage emergency as demand for energy has increased by more than eight hundred percent in the past week.

It's been years since the Venetian canals have turned to ice, as the entirety of Europe struggles through the worst and coldest winter in decades. The canals of the more northerly city of Amsterdam in the Netherlands also froze over solid, with thousands of residents walking, skating or biking on the icy new thoroughfares.