Originally Posted by
Perche
You are right, cruise ship season will still in high swing through all of October, with a ship in port everyday. Cruise ship landings don't begin to taper until mid-November, and finally stop at the end of November. But the crowds are still much less than from June to September, and the weather is much better. By having the opportunity to go later in the season OP will be catching a big break if he chooses Venice.
My first visit to Venice was in July! I remember that the crowds sucked from Piazza San Marco to Ponte Rialto, and then that the rest of the city was still pretty quiet. Like, quiet enough for some dude remodeling his house to start swearing at me when I walked down his side street. I responded in Italian, he laughed and said something back in unintelligible dialect and we both went back to what we were doing.
I'm hoping to go back, maybe next February. It's nice being from Maine, because even in the dead of winter, most places that we might try and visit are still warmer than home.