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| The first-time visitor to Venice arrives with a heavy freight of expectations, most of which turn out to have been well founded. It is an extraordinarily beautiful city, an urban landscape so rich that you can walk for a minute without coming across something that worth a stop, and the major sights like the basilica and piazza of San Marco are all they are cracked up to be, as are most of the lesser-known ones. The downside is that Venice is deluged with tourists, the annual influx exceeding the city population two hundredfold. However, the crowds thin out beyond the magnetic field of San Marco, and in the off season it still possible to have parts of the centre virtually to yourself. |