Travel: Avoid the crowds and go to Venice in winter

St Mark's Basilica, the Doge's Place and the Campanile, so familiar from the pictures, whether Canaletto's or Lonely Planet's, are immensely more imposing in real life. As they needed to be because the Republic, founded in 696AD by communities from the islands around the Lagoon to repel Lombard and Byzantine invaders, was also born to trade.

In the Middle Ages, the city state developed as a prime melting pot between west and east. In times of need, huge galleys waged essential wars and transported Crusaders to the Holy Land, but the flow of goods, wool and wine from Europe, spices and silk from the Levant and beyond, was constant and profitable. The Doge, traditionally the shrewdest elder elected for life by the aristocrats, lived in pomp and, for the most part, wielded power effectively, a recipe that worked until 1796 when Napoleon put an end to nearly all of it.

But not to that instinctive Midas touch. In February, demand for restaurants outstripped supply as most were shut, but a return in mid-June revealed a commercial maelstrom that would have brought joy to the entrepreneurial Marco Polo, high on Venice's roll of honour for establishing trade routes with China in the late 13th century.

On a wet afternoon, the crowds thronged alleys as slippery as the fish in the waterfront market, the raw ingredients for a distinctive local cuisine. They paused to admire the stone panel depicting a semi-naked lady sitting perilously over the flames in protest at the replacement of the wooden Rialto Bridge by today's whale-backed stone one in 1588. Saucy images captured, they surged towards the next corner, once the site of world's oldest bank, founded in 1157, now a wine bar in which to escape rain.

At dusk, the gondoliers, all from families belonging to a very securely closed shop, put on their striped vests and silly hats to paddle human cargo slowly and exorbitantly round the canals at dusk. A winning trade as an hour's trip lasts a scant 50 minutes, but they do throw in O Sole Mio. Yes, really.

If there are morals in this, they are go to Venice in winter when it's empty, or pick your moment to join the throng by staying outside the city. On my most recent visit, I chose the Lido, a 12km sandbar of an island facing the famous skyline across the Lagoon. There is no more exhilarating way to get to it than a high-powered water taxi straight out of the airport. The suave Italian behind the wheel upped the revs to bounce across the waves, looking round hopefully to see if his passengers would protest.

As there was a predictable lack of response from a derring-do group keen to maximise extracurricular fun, he looped past the glass-making island of Murano to give us a close-up of Renaissance houses built in the sea. They are similar though smaller to the mansions on the Grand Canal, with aquatic entrances for goods and family gondolas, all of them black by the Doge's edict in 1630. Rising damp? Surely, but they're still in place after 500 years so the builders clearly knew their business.

The Lido is the largest of Venice's rare green lungs, home to the city's only casino, the golf course and the world's oldest film festival. In essence, much of the narrow island is a beach, some of it public but much of it private, divided between the myriad hotels and restaurants along the shore.

The northern segment is the most prestigious and also the closest to Venice, with regular vaporetto (water bus) services. This is the beating cultural heart, with the Festival Palace and the Hotel des Bains, the setting for Thomas Mann's classic novel, Death in Venice, and the location for Visconti's marvellous film interpretation of it. The Gran Viale Santa Maria Elisabetta, a wide 700m shopper's paradise, connects the Lagoon with the Adriatic in the middle of the island.

Some may find it bizarre to play golf in a city with enough world class sights to fill every day for a month, but one church can look very much like another once culture fatigue kicks in. By way of refreshing our sightseers' zeal, we headed for Alberoni nature reserve on the Lido's south-western tip to check out the Venice Golf Club. The man who made it happen was Henry Ford, the US motor magnate. "What, no golf?" he said grumpily as he checked his clubs into the Hotel Excelsior in 1928. With his friend, Count Volpi, creator of the film festival in 1932, he targeted Alberoni and the first nine holes were inaugurated two years later.

The stuff of legends? Maybe, but the club's British antecedents are beyond doubt, with a Scottish designer Ian Cruikshank planning the first nine holes and Henry Cotton completing the 18 after the Second World War. In 1934, Hitler and Mussolini conferred in the clubhouse, later deferring to Bing Crosby and the Duke of Windsor who wanted to get in a round. Now it was our turn to swing on fairways used by Arnold Palmer, Seve Ballesteros and Lee Trevino. I doubt we made such a good job of it, especially at the signature ninth, built around 18th-century fortifications and monitored by a light that tells you when it's safe to tee off.

No matter, high scores were no enemies of appetite. Have you tried Risi e Bisi, velvety rice topped with crispy squid served with green pea ice-cream? Don't leave Venice until you have. You'll definitely be back for more.Momentum Travel (020 7371 9111, www.momentum.uk.com, www.golfitalia.co.uk), three nights B&B at the three-star Hotel Villa Tiziana on Venice Lido, from 379 pp, including BA flights from Gatwick or Jet2 flights from Edinburgh to Venice Marco Polo airport. Water taxi from Marco Polo airport to the Lido, 10 pp each way.

Further information: www.italiantouristboard.com.

• This article was first published in the Scotland on Sunday on October 10, 2010