Brodsky's Gondola Ride at Night

After saying no one can afford them but septuagenarians and that locals don't ride them, he goes on to say that he once succumbed at night.

From Brodsky's Watermark:

     The night was cold, moonlit, and quiet. There were five of us in the gondola, including the owner, a local engineer who, together with his girlfriend, did all the paddling. We moseyed and zigzagged like an eel through the silent town hanging over our heads, cavernous and empty, resembling at this late hour a vast, largely rectangular coral reef or a succession of uninhabited grottoes. It was a peculiar sensation: to find yourself moving within what you're used to glancing across -- canals; it felt like acquiring an extra dimension. Presently we glided into the laguna and headed toward the island of the dead, toward San Michele.