The most pleasant time of year to come is late March into May, with clear spring days and fewer crowds. The city is especially busy in the flourishing months of spring, especially surrounding Easter. Accommodation is one of the most difficult things to find around that time zone, as well as around Christmas, New Year and festival Carnevale (Which is in February). Like Italy’s other great tourist areas, Venice is at its worst in summer (Months such as June-August): it's crowded, oppressively hot and sticky. September is the next best in terms of weather, but October is quieter. Flooding occurs in November and December, and winter can be unpleasantly cold, although seeing Venice under a layer of snow can cast the aura of a fairy tale.

For the ideal combination of comparative calm and pleasant climate, the two or three weeks directly preceding Easter is perhaps the best time of year. The days should be mostly mild, though the weather can be capricious and finding accommodation won't present insuperable problems.

Climatically the months at the end of the high season are somewhat less stable: some November days are so clear that the Dolomites seem to begin on the edge of the mainland, while others impart fogs that make it difficult to see from one bank of the Canal Grande to the other. However, the desertion of the streets in winter is magical, and the sight of the Piazza under floodwater is unforgettable. This acqua alta, as Venice's seasonal flooding is called, is an increasingly common occurrence between October and March, and you should anticipate a few inconvenient days in the course of a two-week visit in winter. Duck-boards enable people to move dry-footed around the busiest parts of the city, but some low-lying areas - such as around Campo San Polo - become impassable to anyone without gumboots, and on certain freakish days the water rises so high that boats can be rowed onto the Piazza.