The Magic of Venice in January
There is never a bad time to visit Venice, despite what some people may tell you. But a good time? The best time? For me, it’s now. In this hushed moment, in the new dawn of the new year. In the blurry edges between the cheer of Christmas and the commotion of Carnival. When everything feels suspended in the morning mist rolling off the lagoon. There is a soft silence that muffles the city in January.
The sound of the water slapping against the time-worn stones seems thunderous, its rhythmic cadence punctuated rudely by choirs of seagulls squawking. The narrow alleyways, usually crowded, occasionally rowdy, suddenly provide moments of solitude and escape, footsteps reverberating on their own between the houses. This is when you have all of it - the restaurants and the churches and the bridges and the traghetti - almost to yourself. It’s magic.
The touristy places batten down the hatches for holidays or refurbishments, which means that the ones that stay open are the real deal. It means lunch could be a beautifully choreographed, vegetable-heavy seven-course affair at Venissa on Mazorbo, where bitter-bright radicchio, huge aniseedy fennel and knobbly Jerusalem artichokes come fresh from the kitchen garden outside the dining room. It means suppers of pizza studded with wobbly full-moon burratas at Birraria La Corte, pit stops for obscure natural wines and sardine cicchetti at Vino Vero, restorative nibbles on sugary puffball frittelle that line the windows of all the bakeries until Lent. It means a cosy corner at Harry’s Bar, which is even better in winter when the windows get steamed up as everyone feasts on baked tagliolini and Bellinis. And when the sun pierces through the clouds with its celestial shards of yellow light, it’s time to race to Venice Venice to get a terrace table at its Grand Canal-side café for a Campari spritz with a Rialto backdrop.
Before the spring trippers arrive, you can get around the Guggenheim in relative peace. You can look at the elegance of the building and imagine Peggy there, dropping cigarette ash as she admired her stellar art collection, trotted after by a coterie of dogs. The current Marcel Duchamp exhibition is wildly good. You can get right up close to see his first Boîte-en-valise with its miniature urinal without the need for sharp elbows. At the Doge’s Palace, the queues, the tour groups, the chaos recede, and the full glory of the spaces emerges, gilt and splendid. The corridors of the Accademia echo, there’s no wait for the lift up to the top of the Santa Maria della Salute bell tower, opera tickets for the Fenice, often impossible to get hold of, are, for this brief window, thrillingly available for a spontaneous matinee. It's as if you have your own private view of the city.
People are quick to comment negatively on Venice, as if to knock it off its perch. “Oh beware of the acqua alta,” they’ll say. “What about the smell, the crowds, the prices?”
These people just don't know where to go, but also more importantly, when.
