Pocket Rough Guide Venice

To hire a gondola costs €80 per forty minutes for up to six passengers, rising to €100 between 7pm and 8am; you pay an extra €40 for every additional twenty minutes, or €50 from 7pm to 8am.

Also distinctively Venetian is the bácaro, a bar that offers a range of snacks called cicheti (or ciccheti); usually €1–2.50 per portion, they may include polpette (small beef and garlic meatballs), carciofini (artichoke hearts) and polipi (baby octopus or squid).

In 1630–31 Venice was devastated by a plague that exterminated nearly 95,000 of the lagoon’s population – one person in three.

In the early years of the twentieth century the leading lights of the Futurist movement came here for the parties thrown by the dotty Marchesa Casati, who was fond of stunts like setting wild cats and apes loose in the palazzo garden, among plants sprayed lilac for the occasion. Peggy Guggenheim, a considerably more discerning patron of the arts, moved into the palace in 1949; since her death in 1979 the Guggenheim Foundation has administered the place, and has turned her private collection into one of the city’s glossiest museums

The main retail zones in Venice are the Mercerie (immediately north of Piazza San Marco) and Calle Larga XXII Marzo (west of the Piazza). Nowadays, they are dominated by famous Italian brands such as Gucci, Prada and Trussardi. In quieter parts of the city, notably in San Polo, some authentically Venetian outlets and workshops are still in operation.