Venice does not need character witnesses. The canals argue for themselves, and the gondoliers make their case with a single oar and a very confident turn down alleys barely wider than the boat.
We spent our first evening simply getting lost, which in Venice is not really possible since every wrong turn eventually spits you out onto a canal with a view worth the detour. Dinner was a plate of clams and spaghetti at a table practically hanging over the water, the kind of meal that makes you forget you were ever billing hours to anyone.
The gondola ride itself lasted about forty minutes and felt like being handed a private tour of a city that has been rehearsing this exact performance for eight hundred years. No objections were raised. None were possible.
If you go, skip the gondola stand near San Marco and ask your hotel for a quieter departure point. You will pay the same price for a route with a tenth of the crowd, and the whole thing will feel less like a tourist attraction and more like the city letting you in on something.