Take a private gondola through the quiet back canals

Away from the Grand Canal, Venice narrows to waterways barely wider than the boat, where the only sounds are the oar and the water against stone. The gondola is asymmetric by design, and rowed standing, facing forward.

A gondola is built about twenty-four centimetres wider on the left than the right, so that a single oarsman working one side can hold a straight line. It takes eight kinds of wood and several hundred hours to build one, and there are only a handful of squeri left making them.

The back canals are the point. A route through Cannaregio, Castello or Dorsoduro passes water doors, bricked-up windows, private courtyards and the underside of bridges you would otherwise walk over without noticing — and it does so without the traffic of the Grand Canal.

Early morning, before the first vaporetti and the delivery boats, is when the city is quietest and the water is glass. Late evening runs it a close second, with the added benefit that the light on the wet stone is at its best.