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If there’s a word that doesn’t belong to Jakarta, it’s beauty. A pleasant balance of the senses — the sights, sounds and smells that evoke finer feelings of awe and appreciation within us— is notably absent in the Indonesian capital, whose streets are dominated by misshapen buildings and construction.

In the jagged metal flyovers, the uneven tarmac and the stingy pavement that shuns pedestrians, who must in turn weave their way between stubborn cars and suicidal motorbikes, the beauty is lost. It certainly doesn’t exist in the smell, a mixture of fumes, sewage and uncollected rubbish, and as for sounds, the city offers only cacophony.

Indeed, beauty is a luxury these days. You can find it sometimes in books, poems and paintings, or perhaps in a beautifully designed piece of technology, but it is otherwise a rare treat for us in this city that is constantly changing, perpetually under construction and increasingly a repository for our waste and dirty habits.

I wanted to experience another kind of atmosphere, and I couldn’t think of a place more different from my hometown than Venice, Italy. The very name of the city conjures up thoughts of history, literature, art and romance, as well as a touch of mystery for someone like me who had never seen it before. That’s why I decided to visit.

So now, after taking a train in from Rome, I have arrived at the Venice Santa Lucia station, and stepping out into the open air, with the damp winter chill against my face, I catch my first glimpse of the city.

I see water, boats and historic buildings lined up along the canal, with rooftops that blend into the flat cloudy sky like a watercolor sketch. A thin mist is descending. And there is not a single car or a motorbike in sight.

I wonder how I will navigate this place. A mixture of laziness and a desire for surprise prevents me from consulting the map, and I didn’t locate my hotel before my journey. At least I know the name of it, as well as the street and the island, San Marco, where it is situated.

Venice has several islands, joined together by hundreds of waterways in place of the main roads you might find in other cities. Other than commuting via water, you find your way in Venice by walking, often along narrow cobbled streets, paved roads and little bridges. I go to the edge of the Grand Canal, Venice’s main highway, so to speak. The water here is deep green with choppy waves, surprisingly clean and without much of a smell. I expect it’s different in the summer.

With no idea how to take public transportation, and with a suitcase the size of a baby whale, I agree to a 70 euro ($89) fare offered by a taxi boatman, who incidentally looks like an aging version of French actor Alain Delon. Times are tough in Italy, I say to myself, so I shouldn’t begrudge helping the economy a bit. As it turns out, Venetian taxis are notoriously expensive, though on the bright side, you get an entire boat to yourself and can pretend you’re in a James Bond film.

The motorboat winds through small canals, often so narrow that we bump the sides, and I look up to the sky, a long stretch of grey between rows of faded pastel buildings. The trip barely lasts 10 minutes — probably the most expensive 10-minute taxi ride ever. My driver completes some complicated right angle turns and we pass elegant black gondolas with cold-looking tourists. I wonder how the driver will drop me off, since my hotel is on a higher level. The boat stops, and with a helping hand from the boatman and a hotel concierge, I make my way to the lobby, which is actually only slightly higher than the boat.

I soon begin to explore the city, once part of a maritime republic famed for wealthy merchants and seafaring traders. And I notice that here, beauty is not only in the palaces, churches and historic buildings that attract so many visitors, all along the canals and in the huge city squares. In Venice, I see, an alluring artistry is present from the moment you step outside, in the terracotta roof tiles, the curvy street lamps and the boats moored along the canals.

Indeed, everything here evokes beauty. It’s in the narrow cobblestone passageways, flanked with shops that sell colorful Murano glass beads, jewelry and trinkets; in the ornate harlequin masks, feathers and fabulous animals of the famed Venetian carnivals and masquerades; and in the curved footbridges separating one alleyway from another, giving view to picturesque pink facades with shuttered windows and potted plants. Free of honking traffic and other loud, industrial noises, I hear only the song of a bell, chiming every hour from the San Marco bell tower.

Desi Anwar is a senior anchor at Metro TV. She can be contacted at desianwar.com and dailyavocado.net.