Three days in Venice, off-season

Everyone goes to Venice in summer and comes back complaining about the crowds. We went in the off-season, when the fog sits low on the water and half the cafés are shuttered, and we had the place almost to ourselves.

Wonderfully lost

We gave up on the map by the second morning. Venice doesn’t reward planning so much as wandering — every wrong turn is a bridge you didn’t know about, a quiet square with one open bar and a waiter who has all the time in the world.

We drank cheap spritzes standing at the counter, ate too much cicchetti, and got so thoroughly lost one evening that we just sat down on a step and watched the water until we figured it out. It remains, hands down, one of our favorite three days.