Venice: A winter walk

 

Is there actually a place more beautifully strange than Venice in the winter?

The tourists have gone home. The streets are quiet in the way that streets in a city of this size are almost never quiet, and when we walk across the small bridges and along the alleys this weekend, the only sounds are rain on cobblestones and our own footsteps.

We are doing the giro d'ombre this evening; moving between the small wine bars that serve cicchetti, the Venetian version of tapas, with an ombra, which is a glass of wine so small it feels like a suggestion. Baccalà on polenta. Calamares. The rain outside the window. We are in no hurry.

Walking back along the canals later, the water goes completely flat and the lights from the old buildings sit in it perfectly, upside down, as if there is a second Venice below the surface going about its own business.

A city built entirely for tourists turns out to be at its best when the tourists have left it in peace.

We are, technically, tourists. But we are the only ones here, and tonight that feels like a distinction worth making.