Hard yakka in Venice

In Australia, when there’s hard work to be done, I disappear.

Wait, that’s not what I meant to tell you. We sometimes call hard work “hard yakka“. And, that’s just what these blokes have been doing in Campo Santo Stefano since I arrived last week.

They’re doing maintenance/replacement work on the gas lines, and everything is done by hand. So, those heavy paving stones (masegni) are lifted and stacked by the workers, to reveal the gas lines. Each stone is numbered so they’ll be put back in the correct place. Then, after the gas specialists trot in and do their stuff, all of those masegni have to put into place by manual labour, and tamped into the sandy base.

Here’s the project nearing it’s finish.

And, here is one of the hard working men using a wooden ram to secure the paving block  into place.

They surely earn their pasta and vino after a day of this sort of work. 

 I’ll  leave you with this image of a really adorable little lion.