Italian gardens add grace to the city's 5-star hotel properties.

When he and his partners planted the Orto vineyard a decade ago, "people thought we were crazy", he says.

But now boutique wineries are going strong, offering intriguing vintages that can only be local, and match the fresh seafood and vegetables harvested on the garden islands.

The best way to taste them? Hire a gondola on the Grand Canal and stop at piers that strike your fancy where small bars and taverns offer dockside cicheti (Venetian tapas piled high with fresh octopus and other goodies) and boffo local vintages by the glass.

Neighborhoods with backstreets that are cicheti hotspots: Castello, the long canals of Cannaregio, around the Rialto Market, and - of course - San Marco.

San Marco is the city's fulcrum and the most popular tourism base.

Key attractions like the stunning Palazzo Ducale, the opera house La Fenice and St. Mark's Basilica are all there, as is the Museo Fortuny, the sleek fashion house famed for its bohemian chic. Goti Mosaico art glass gleams in old churches.

In the nearby Castello district is the Arsenale, the great medieval shipyard founded in 1104.

Employing as many as 16,000 people, it could turn out a complete ship in a day - and needed to in the era of its fiercest fighting with Genoa. More than 3 kilometers of imposing walls keep prying eyes at bay even today, though the Arsenale annually welcomes the public during the alternating Art and Architecture biennales.

Open year-round is the adjacent Museo Historico Navale, a four-story shrine to the Venice city-state's storied seafaring past.

There are scale models of ships from Venice's days as the terminus of the old Maritime Silk Road, as well as Peggy Guggenheim's eye-popping custom gondola.

The piazza at San Marco is the Times Square of Venice. And the huge cobblestoned area can seem just as crowded.

Venture out of the central square and wander (or float) along the canals and narrow alleyways, and you almost immediately feel far from the maddening crowd.

Surprisingly, even San Marco's square thins out by sunset.

The Eastern European tour buses leave at 6 pm, the cruise ships leave at 7, Thoulouze says, with a big grin.

"Even San Marco gets suddenly quiet in the evening, and you can have a nice, nice walk in Venice - just like in the movies."

Contact the writer at michaelpeters@chinadaily.com.cn