Despite attempts to reduce visitors, such as banning cruise ships from the old city and charging a nightly tourist tax, La Serenissima (“the most serene”) belies its nickname and swells with tourists most days to the point of overcrowding. Cruise ships dock farther away now, but guests are bused in and, during our visit, not a single official asked to see proof of our prepaid nightly fee. Still, it’s actually quite easy to find quiet pockets of Venice. Here’s how to do it.

Strategic Timing

The best times to visit Venice without the masses are November and January, when the city is truly serene and crowd-free (not to mention that hotel prices are slashed). Venice is only two hours away from the ski slopes of the Dolomites, and with direct flights to the U.S., the city could be a lovely place to start or end a European ski holiday. Keep in mind that the time around Christmas and New Year’s Eve is quite busy, as are the weeks leading up to Carnival (February 22 to March 4, 2025). If you plan to attend art exhibitions of the Biennale, you’ll have no choice but to go between April and September. Plan your visit for a few weeks after the opening, when the initial fervor has died down but before the summer visitors conglomerate. (The next Biennale is in 2026.) Whenever you’re planning a trip, make sure it doesn’t coincide with any major bank holidays, since the city is a popular destination for Italian tourists.

Track the Crowds

One helpful website for tracking the crowds is CruiseTimetables, which lets you see which ships are in Venice and how many people are on board. If possible, plan to visit top attractions on weekdays without a ship docked in port. You’ll find that the city tends to empty out in the evenings, when cruise passengers and local daytrippers have left. A night stroll in Venice, when the main sounds are church bells and water lapping in the canals, can be extraordinarily romantic.

Explore Sites on the Lagoon

While Burano and Murano are famous attractions, there are numerous other islands scattered across the lagoon. Some are undeveloped, but others are worth a stop, especially for intrepid travelers on longer visits to the city. One day, we spent the afternoon on Mazzorbo, first dining at the Michelin-starred Venissa (read our review here) before strolling through vineyards and walking on a path around the circumference of the sleepy island. (There’s also a footbridge that leads to Burano.) When I told the concierge at our hotel that we were visiting San Servolo, he was flabbergasted. “It’s an interesting place, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a tourist going there,” he said. After a 15-minute boat ride, we arrived at the island, which was once home to a monastery and an asylum. Now the buildings have been turned into a university campus, complete with a lecture center and dorms, but a few rooms have been preserved as an asylum museum. The Travel Office can arrange an English-speaking guide for a tour that includes the (quite beautiful) apothecary, where built-in shelves hold vessels that once contained medicinal herbs. In grimmer parts of the museum that might not appeal to everyone, we saw a room where they performed autopsies, as well as a display of the restraints used to subdue patients. 

Visit Lesser-Known Sites

A tip from an art restorer friend led us to the Church of San Sebastiano, which had recently undergone a 17-year refurbishment. Its walls, ceiling and apse are covered with bold oil paintings depicting biblical scenes, many by Paolo Veronese, who is buried at the church. The newly restored works veritably glowed with otherworldly divinity, and the chapel was spotless. While millions of visitors swarm St. Mark’s Basilica each year, we had the chapel to ourselves. We enjoyed similar experiences at the Frari, a massive 13th-century church filled with important paintings and sculptures; Punta della Dogana, a thought-provoking contemporary art museum; and the Franchetti Gallery, a museum in the exquisite Ca’ d’Oro palazzo on the Grand Canal. Venice has so many impressive museums and churches, there’s no need to limit yourself to the famous “must-sees.”

Buy Timed Tickets

If you do plan to visit the well-known sites, buy timed tickets in advance. For extremely popular museums like the Doge’s Palace, the Gallerie dell’Accademia and the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, book the latest possible time slot, when cruise passengers have most likely returned to their ships. We had great fun exploring the Gallerie dell’Accademia by ourselves in the last hour before closing, and the Doge’s Palace was positively breezy and uncrowded in the late afternoon. Many sites have audio guides, but I prefer to have the Travel Office organize a knowledgeable human guide, who can tailor a tour to my interests.

Put the Map Away

There is no other city in the world where it’s more fun to get lost in than Venice. I encourage you to leave your phone in your pocket at some point and let your senses guide you. Since we stayed for a week, we had the luxury of losing our way multiple times. If we had somewhere to be, we’d leave an hour early, point ourselves in the vague direction of our target, and follow the winding calle. Some of our most memorable moments happened unexpectedly on the way to somewhere else. Invariably, we’d discover an empty church full of gorgeous murals, a store selling handmade silk dresses or a tucked-away wine bar that didn’t appear on Google Maps. Staying in different hotels also allowed us to meander through various neighborhoods. We found our way to the buzzy wine bars along the Fondamenta Priuli and the Fondamenta de la Misericordia, and we took a relaxing evening walk to Campo Santa Margherita to have a drink at one of the casual restaurants lining the square.