La Vita è Bella on Venice’s Lido Island

During a prolonged stay in Venice last June, a heatwave of the Dante’s Inferno variety caused tempers among my travel companions to soar alongside the mercury. Making no attempt to disguise their contempt for my choice of vacation destination, I combed my guidebook in a last-ditch effort to salvage our holiday. Inside its worn pages, I found a pithy, breathless description of the Lido: a nearby island with “umbrella-lined beaches.” Clinging to this morsel of hope, I herded our flock into a water taxi with promises of better times ahead.