The Venice on Florida's gulf coast is an ultra quiet community where the large majority of people are retired. A great place to just relax, knowing that you can leave a bike on
your front lawn seconds from the beach and not have it stolen. It's the stereotype of Florida.
Its has italianate architecture and there are indeed numerous canals in the subdivisions. There are galleries downtown, but they are hardly
iconoclastic. Everything is clean and orderly, brought back to a messy reality if only by the couple of poor houses by I-75 and the fact that the 9/11 terrorists learned to fly planes here.
For a faster pace seek
Sarasota.