Coming into Venice after a long day on the train from Naples was a dream-like experience. From southern almost summer time I was transported into an early November dark world of chill fog that hit me like a blast as I walked from the train to the boat landing on the Grand Canal.

As the vaporetto chugged down the Grand Canal I felt the sweetness of a waking dream. If a place can be a romance, it is Venice, probably the best preserved historic city in Europe (and maybe the world)—and one without cars, where transportation is by foot, or boat, or not at all. The shifting light and translucent fog makes Venice truly a photographer’s paradise.