It's Venice - of course, you will go and of course, you will love it no matter how much you try not to and no matter how much you are prepared not to.
We've been to Venice several times - always as part of another, larger trip and have never stayed more than a few days, never seen a fraction of what there is to see but what we've seen has left indelible marks upon our memories. Kevin sometimes dreams in Italian, walking the streets in some city or hill town, slipping in and out of churches, piazzas, and cafes. The dreams are good but make one ache for the real deal.
Venice is an old and decaying city, trodden and overcome by far too many and ever exponentially growing number of tourists every year. Try to walk the streets during the main part of the day and you will find every part of the city choked with throngs of people in town for the day or just a few hours, trying to see all the highlights and the canals after having been ferried ashore from one of the cruise ships anchored out in the ... you hate it, right? Imagine how the locals (there aren't many, but enough of them) feel at having their beloved city ruined by, well, you, and all of that. In the back streets in small, rarely traveled parts of the city there is plenty of graffiti urging tourists to go fuck themselves and then go home. The happy hours here are grand.
"No one reads your fucked up poetry on Facebook" - Pascal
But walk the same streets at night and you will feel the city breathe, relax and sigh. You'll not get into (m)any of the buildings or churches - except for bistros, wine shops, restaurants, and the odd gallery or disused lobby of a mansion from the 1400s. But in those darkened alleys and canals, the back streets, shops shuttered for the night and the smell of the canals, refuse and piss you will begin to feel a kinship and a kind of reckoning. Walk the canals until well after midnight - you will lose your way and backtrack often but will never be completely lost. After all, you are on an island (several of them) and there is only so far you can go astray before finding one of the main paths.
Rise early and walk those streets again - feel the cool morning early sun blessing the buildings and paving stones with the small, first kisses of the morning. Feel the city yawn and stretch before you. Take yourself to the markets - walk amongst the stalls as the fishermen and the market workers prepare their produce and offerings, sing-songing and joking in their local dialect - inhale the scent of every kind of fish and fruit and vegetable, ice tossed and bedded, inky squid, octopus, urchins. Feel whatever yearning is inside you grow and ache from distant memory and wish that you could be there every morning after this one.
After this, stand in the growing sun - or the rain or the tide rising past your ankles and find your way off the streets before 10 - before the cruise ships expel their afterbirth and teeming masses seeking photos and pizza (who can blame them?). Get to a small cafe for a cafe, or a glass of white wine or brandy, and then return to your room for a nap before braving the crowds again - and a day or two before leaving for the next destination all the while thinking you should simply stay.
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