Pity the Venetian gondolier. And pity the tourists who may be there now — on long-planned vacations — and found that some of the city’s famous canals in a rare state: nearly dried up.

“Rare” because if Venice, Italy, is known for a water-related problem, it’s usually the opposite one: too much, not too little. Floods have plagued the city for centuries, making it difficult to walk the narrow lanes and bridges. Now, a long-running high-pressure system in much of <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/alerts/Italy">Italy</a> is being blamed for a lack of rain, ebb tides and those nearly dried-up canals.

As these photos show, it’s more than an oddity, and it’s not just gondoliers and tourists who are affected. Canals have always functioned as Venice’s streets and avenues; the city’s commerce and public services — ambulances included — run on the water. <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/prolonged-low-tides-smaller-canals-dry-venice-97356883">The Associated Press reported this week</a> that ambulance boats have had to tie up farther from their destination, forcing teams to carry stretchers over long distances.

The good news: Venice’s main waterways, including the Grand and Giudecca canals, are wider and deeper and still functioning normally. But when it comes to those smaller, narrower, magical waterways of this great city — well, many just don’t look like waterways at all.

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World in Photos: Venice’s dried-up canals

Venice is no stranger to floods and overflowing canals. Now it’s suffering the opposite problem.