The crowds can be trying, but there are still good reasons to visit the canal-rich city
I am in Venice. It is a-throng with slow moving, selfie-stick-touting tourists, less intent on sightseeing than on seeing themselves in the sights. Where are the shops where normal people shop for pans and cloths? There are lots selling glass or beautiful handmade paper. But normal, everyday stuff? Not so much. I read that the resident population on the island is a fifth of what it was in the 1950s. The first woman in the world to graduate from university was born here.
I struggle in crowds, so I go searching for peace and quiet. The Peggy Guggenheim affords a relatively peaceful and breezy terrace on which to canal-watch, just a shuffle away from Marini’s very happy man on a horse: the Angel of the City. The gift shop (I love me a gift shop) has no chocolate, but a Mondrian Miffy.
