VENICE: A CITY OF WINTERY, WATERY WONDERS.

Byline: Stan Grossfeld Boston Globe

This seaport in the dead of winter is as close as you can get to the 15th century without a time machine. No sweltering heat, no tourist hordes, no cars, just a surreal fog that masks the present and a slight melancholy feeling that things are slowly crumbling back to the sea.

If romance wasn't invented in Venice, it certainly flourishes here. What's more romantic than stealing a kiss from a lover as the gondolier maneuvers under the Bridge of Sighs? And, in winter, many days are romantically foggy.

If you fly into Marco Polo Airport, the first thing you notice is the nearly deserted car rental counters. At the Avis counter, the attendant didn't have to try harder. He didn't have to try at all. There are no cars in Venice. If you take the train, you don't get into a cab. There are none. You take a water taxi. There are water ambulances and water fire boats. And if you are there after a couple of days of rain, or a particularly high tide, or an onshore prevailing wind, there is water in your shoes. The three days we were in Venice were rain-free, but we noticed foot-high walkways set up along the streets to rescue pedestrians.

Venice is a series of 117 tiny islands separated by 177 canals. Do the canals smell? The Grand Canal, that inverse S-shaped curve that feeds out into the Adriatic Sea, does not smell. Neither do most, but not all, of the smaller canals.

This winter, the canals were being drained and cleaned for the first time in decades. The canal cleaners have found everything, even washing machines, toasters, and tires.

The best sightseeing advice is to get lost. Go down side streets, tiny nooks and dead-end streets. Forget the church interiors and feeding those filthy pigeons in Piazza San Marco. Instead, find the last old man in Dorsoduro who handcrafts the fleet of gondolas. His hands look like weathered pier pilings.

Don't worry, you'll never get that lost, because sooner or later you will hit the Grand Canal. Besides, Venetians are used to giving directions.

For transportation, the three-day vaporetto (water bus) pass is recommended. This allows you to get on and off any vaporetto at any time. Please remember that after you purchase the ticket you must validate it yourself in one of those yellow punch ticket machines. Failure to do so will result in a hefty fine.

If you are willing to explore, you can find deserted squares, restaurants filled with locals only, and upgrades in half-empty hotels to antique-filled suites overlooking the Grand Canal.

We stayed at the stylish Bauer Grimwald Hotel, and were upgraded to a suite with a balcony on the Grand Canal. ``This is the best time to be here,'' said Antonio Massari, the concierge. ``If you were here in the summer, this lobby would look like the airport. Jammed with luggage and people.'' Room 206 was filled with antiques and a gigantic crystal chandelier, yet it had a modern Jacuzzi.

The hotel is only two blocks to the elegant Piazza San Marco. This is prime tourist real estate but on winter nights it can be deserted. Harry's Bar, of Hemingway fame, is a charming restaurant right off the Grand Canal, near Piazza San Marco. But dinner for two here costs $200. You can do much better elsewhere. The rule of thumb is don't look at the menu, listen to the dialect. If you can understand what they are saying, get out and go somewhere you can't. That's the beauty of Venice in winter.

A cappuccino in the stylish Florian Cafe will set you back $7, but the artwork, coziness and views of Piazza San Marco are worth it. This is also one of the few places where there are separate no-smoking rooms.

For lunch, try Vino, Vino, a restaurant where the locals spend hours laughing and eating. The pasta dishes, all delicious, are changed every few minutes. They don't mind if you go up to the kitchen and just point at what you want. A very filling lunch for two with wine was $30.

For dinner, try Al Gondolieri, near the Peggy Guggenheim Collection. At first glance, each table has a bouquet of flowers. In actuality, each table has a vase of raw vegetables: carrots, fennel, celery, and radicchio, fanned out like flower petals. These delicious treats, better than the mass-produced produce of America, were served with a small bowl of mustard and oil for dipping. The veal, steak and small but succulent lamb chops are standard fare here. Don't be surprised if you hear loud pounding noises from the kitchen; it's just the chefs tenderizing the steaks.

All menus in Venice include service but not taxes. Most restaurants charge for the bread they put on your table. If you don't want bread, don't pay for it.

Shopping in Venice tends to be pricey. Venetian lace, handwoven on the nearby island of Burano, is world-renowned. But at $2,000 a tablecloth, that takes the fun out of spilling a little red wine. Equally as famous, but much cheaper, is the handblown glass from the island of Murano. If you don't want to leave Venice, the Artistic Murano Glass Gallery in Piazza San Marco features a variety of unusual items at the same prices as those found on Murano. Tops on the list is a fishbowl complete with air bubbles suspended forever.

For most tourists, no trip to Venice is complete without a gondola ride. Prices range from $60 to $100, depending on the time and tour. The standard advice is to negotiate before you get in the gondola, or be prepared to turn over your first-born child upon leaving.

Most tourists in gondolas go out on the Grand Canal, but that is a rookie mistake. For less than $5, you can ride the No. 1 vaporetto on the Grand Canal and have a choice of sitting inside or out. It's a far better investment to get the gondolier to negotiate only the small canals that are impossible to see on foot or by vaporetto. Also remember that if you want to have an accordion player and a tenor singing ``O Sole Mio'' entertain you on board, you may pay a hefty price.

A second-generation gondolier named Antonio, with a short stroke and a broad smile, took us on a 75-minute small canal tour for $80. He showed us where Marco Polo lived, where the all-time high-water mark from the flooding of the 1930s was, and made sure we knew about the tradition of kissing under the Bridge of Sighs. When a camera jammed at a critical moment, he even offered to take us out the next day for free.

Antonio, who spent a few years maneuvering the canals of Venice, Calif., was asked what he thought of those California girls. ``I never looked at anyone,'' he said as he maneuvered past the Bridge of Sighs, ``after I met my beautiful bride.''

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Photo: Antonio, a second-generation gondolier, works his one-legged gondolier trick as he takes passengers on a 75-minute small canal tour around Venice.