Save it for a rainy day

Off-season holidays are travel's best-kept secret. Grab an umbrella and winter coat to explore a new side of familiar places

- SEEMA GOSWAMI

I was trying to work out the other day when my fondness for off-season holidays first began. And I traced it right back to my first visit to Venice nearly 25 years ago. It was the dead of winter, and Venice itself seemed deathly calm, with nary a tourist in sight. I wandered through a deserted San Marco Square, I visited the Doge's Palace in near-solitary splendour, I sat in empty cafés, sipping on steaming cappuccinos, and I wandered through the streets without being jostled by a million other people who had had the same idea.