A tale of two operas shows why music reigns supreme

Only tourists and the ignorant rely on public transport in the UK on weekends without checking their routes in advance. Or, in my case, silly women who simply forget.

This is what I told myself over and over again as we sat motionless on a wooded track in Hampshire yesterday. We'd already been en route 45 minutes. Under normal circumstances we'd be pulling into Waterloo. But now we were awaiting a signal from engineering works to go backwards, then forwards, and eventually creep into London. Irritating at any time, but particularly distressing when you're on your way to town for a much anticipated outing to the Royal Opera House.

ROH tickets are disastrously expensive, pushing well over £100 for the good seats. There are, however, a handful of "cheap" options at around £50 each up near the top of the theatre and, as reported in past entries (read about Turandot on 24.1.09, and Simon Boccanegra on 30.5.08) they still offer a great view. But to get them, you have to move fast. I booked yesterday's tickets to The Magic Flute five hours after they went on sale last October. Four months of planning, and I wasn't sure I was going to get to the performance at all.

We arrived at Waterloo at 12:40, ten minutes after the performance had started. Twenty minutes later we were walking into the historic foyer but, of course, couldn't disrupt proceedings to get to our seats. So instead of the spectacle of Mozart on a grand stage, we got the first half of the opera on a big TV screen set up in one of the grand reception rooms. Trying to look on the positive side, it did mean we were first at the bar at the interval, able to snag a table and enjoy a lunch of gourmet open faced sandwiches and champagne in the neo-Victorian glass house that is the Paul Hamlyn Hall.

Finally in our seats for the second half, Mozart's fantastic music soothed away what stresses remained from the journey, and within a few minutes I was fully engaged in the preposterous plot. Set in what's notionally ancient Egypt, but also bears a striking resemblance to Enlightenment Europe, a prince is engaged by the Queen of the Night to rescue her kidnapped daughter. Upon arriving where the princess (with whom, of course, he's instantly fallen in love) is being held, the prince discovers that the kidnapper is actually a good guy, and our hero instantly wants to join the sacred mysteries and intellectual nirvana of the kidnapper's kingdom. Thereupon follows a Masonic-inspired journey as our brave lad and his intrepid sidekick, who also provides the comic relief, undergo all sorts of tests to prove themselves worthy of joining the fellowship and winning the love of their respective fair maidens.

On paper, it's a stretch. A big chunk of the opera is taken up with Masonic mumbo-jumbo. You're given no good reason why we should suddenly see the Queen of the Night as the baddie, except that a key point of the plot is that women shouldn't be in positions of authority because they're not capable of rational thought. Not a plot you'd think would have maintained its popularity into the 21st century, really.

But none of this matters because of Mozart's score. The music is glorious from beginning to end, with the Queen of the Night's arias being some of the most beautiful ever written for the soprano voice. When you get a really top singer, as we did with Jessica Pratt, you find it hard to believe that it's actually a human generating the amazing trills of her famous vengeance aria. ("Der Hölle Rache kocht in meinem Herzen".) Hearing it live is a literally breath-taking experience. The opera's pacing is quick enough to keep you from ever getting bored. The comic relief is truly funny and gets some of the best arias. The Queen of the Night and her vampish handmaidens have great costumes, and there are some strange child spirits who zip around in a flying cart and sing with the treble voices of angels. It was a magnificent production, and I could have happily sat through it again, immediately, for the evening performance.

It was an interesting contrast to the week's earlier operatic experience. The English National Opera, generally known as the cutting edge risk takers while the ROH holds up the grand tradition, brought in film director Mike Figgis to create a version of Donizetti's Lucrezia Borgia. Figgis (Leaving Las Vegas, Internal Affairs) hadn't seen an opera until a year before he got involved in the project, so he brought completely fresh eyes. The result ran live on Sky Arts, with the full work playing on Sky Arts 2 and a director's commentary simultaneously on Arts 1.

Back on paper, while The Magic Flute shouldn't work, Lucrezia Borgia should. It's a ripping yarn of political intrigue, sex and jealousy loosely based on one of the most fascinating times in Italian history, full of mistaken identities, guilt, violence and big surprises at the end. Figgis did some interesting stuff, particularly in designing sets lifted directly from famous Renaissance artists, such as the pictured banquet before our hero's friends all get poisoned, arranged to look just like DaVinci's last supper. He filmed a back story to cut into the overtures and longer musical interludes, giving you historical context and some character exposition for Lucrezia. It should have been great. The problem? Musically, it's just a bad opera.

There's not a memorable tune anywhere in it. At no moment does the music make your heart soar with joy, weep with emotion, shudder with fear or melt with love. Mozart manages all of that in The Magic Flute. Repeatedly. More oddly, all the music sounds the same. Whether it's our hero and his buddies carousing, the Duke of Ferrara (Lucrezia's husband) plotting or Lucrezia herself collapsing in grief over her son's death, the music is all a vaguely cheerful, rather inane 19th century bundle of notes. It reminds you of all those forgettable, sound-the-same national anthems that run together at the Olympics.

Unfortunately Donizetti's ability to turn a great proto-mafia tale into pretty boredom scored a big point for my fiance in our enduring German v. Italian opera debate. I had to concede, Wagner could have done something great with that plot. And in the hands of Mozart? I tremble to imagine.

Da Rioba tops list of Venetian restaurant finds, but avoid eating at Hotel Dei Dogi at all costs

As a general rule of thumb for Venice, the further you get from St. Mark's Square, the better the food will be. (With an exception for the area immediately around Piazzale Roma and the train station, generally filled with execrable places taking advantage of hungry new arrivals who will never return.)

In the main islands of the city, your best bets tend to be in the districts of San Polo and Cannaregio. If you're staying in the main mass of tourist hotels around the Rialto or in San Marco, this may look like a daunting walk. Once you get the hang of navigating the city, however, nothing is more than about 20 minutes away. Trust me, it's worth it. Get into the areas where the natives actually live, and you'll find places serious about the food because they need their regulars to come back.

Our top find for this trip was Ostaria Da Rioba, at Fondamenta de la Misericordia 2553. As with most of the best places here, it's tiny ... about 10 tables ... so essential to book. They put additional tables on the pavement in nice weather; they're on a lovely but almost entirely residential canal with wonderful views. The menu is varied with both fish and meat dishes (the latter being more unusual in Venice) and the preparation leans toward the gourmet. The service is fantastic; English-speaking waiters know the details of dishes and aren't afraid to make recommendations, both from the menu and the wine list.

Piers started with a most un-Venetian goose carpaccio with mango jam, baby salad leaves and candied walnuts which was the clear winner for this course. My spaghetti alla seppia, with a black sauce made from cuttlefish and their ink that's one of Venice's most classic dishes, was delicious but lacked the novel delight we got with the goose. We both triumphed with the mains: Piers with a gorgeous piece of tuna crusted with black and white sesame seeds and grilled perfectly so that it was still very rare at its centre, me with melt-in-your-mouth goujons of lightly battered turbot served over a pile of grilled baby artichokes. On the side we'd ordered a spinach salad with pears and walnuts, also gorgeous. This was all accompanied by the waiter's wine choice, a 2009 collio bianco from Edi Keber, a Friulian who doesn't export much. Decanter magazine gives it five stars and says "ample fruit and floral aromas, soft and full bodied with a long tasty finish." Yes. A second bottle was a must. Which means that neither of us can now remember what I had for dessert, other than to say it was great. (Piers had the first of many tiramisus; every restaurant tells you theirs is unique) I suspect if those particular brain cells weren't killed by the wine, they were done in by the complimentary grappa the waiter brought at the end of the evening. The whole meal came in at £140 which is, of course, not cheap, but good value for three courses each and two bottles of excellent wine.

The runner up prize goes to Osteria Da Alberto, on calle Giacinto Gallina not far from Zanipolo. Less elegant and more homey than Rioba, its handful of tables are scattered over two rooms. At the front there's a bar where locals pop in and get sandwiches and snacks to eat while chatting with the proprietors; most of the starters and desserts are dished up from here. I started with sarde in saor, a Venetian classic from the days before refrigeration. The fish are breaded and deep fried, then marinated in a sweet and sour vinegar with lots of onions. It's not a dish for the faint of heart, and I have to say that the Danes win the pickled fish contest by miles. But you really should try the dish while you're here, and Alberto's was an excellent example.

Piers started with a dish of tiny gnocchi in gorgonzola sauce. Delicate and rich, this combination of two of his favourite ingredients ... potatoes and cheese ... had his eyes rolling in delight. He went on to a fillet steak, cooked rare as he requested and served on a bed of balsamic dressed rocket, while I had the spaghetti al mare. It's tough to avoid the latter dish in Venice, as just about every restaurant does it, but this was a particularly good example loaded with fresh seafood and delicately flavoured with garlic, oil and excellent tomatoes. We had another excellent wine here: Marco Scolaris' pinot nero from the Collio region was the kind of fruity yet light red that can easily cross over between meat and fish.

Next on the list is Anice Stellato (Star Anise), on Fondamenta de la Sensa. It is the closest restaurant to the Hotel Dei Dogi, and one that's been in the guidebooks for a while. I'm fairly sure we ate here on the Northwestern Girls' trip in 2001, something I didn't remember until I got inside and was almost certain I'd been there before. A bit bigger than either of the restaurants above, Anice Stellato spreads over three rooms with a bar anchoring the space between the first and second. While Rioba looks like a slightly trendy local wine bar, Alberto like an un-improved workers' lunch spot, this place is a more consciously modern restaurant, with stripped wooden floors, bare wood tables and lots of modern art. The food was good but the service less so, something you'll see reflected on their Trip Advisor reviews. We couldn't get in on our first night, so made a reservation for 9 on the next.

Our table was waiting when we arrived but service was slow ... after a long delay posy starters the waitress removed our bread basket and handed us dessert menus. I'm sure they forgot the second half of our order. Because of the delay, we were the last people in the restaurant and while we had dessert the staff was changed to go home, sat in the front room, had a good gossip and generally forgot about us.

The food might have made up for it but for some sloppy mistakes in the kitchen. We started with a little ciccheti ... the Venetian take on tapas ... of prawns in saor. A more delicate and enjoyable taste than the sardines, but this is never going to be my favourite way to prepare a prawn. Piers' first course was tagliatelli with locally caught spider crab and zucchini, which he pronounced excellent but for stray bits of shell in the dish. My bucatini in a light tomato sauce with smoked tuna was good, although I'm not sure I'd do that combo again as I felt the sweetness of the tomato and the smoke of the fish were actually battling with each other; a cream sauce would have been better. When the mains finally arrived, they were average. Piers' lamb rolled in pistachio had potential, but had been cooked too long for much taste to remain. My swordfish steak was beautiful, done with lemon, butter and breadcrumbs and melting in the mouth, but the plate beneath it was swimming in far too much butter and the potatoes that accompanied it were bland and unattractive. I'd try it again if staying at the Dei Dogi, but I'd book well in advance so I could be there with the main dinner crowd, and I'd be much more assertive about how my mains were cooked.

One place I would NOT, under any circumstances, eat again if staying at Dei Dogi is Dei Dogi itself. We reserved a table in their small dining room for Valentine's Day dinner, figuring it would be convenient not to leave the hotel and responding to a great looking Valentine's Day menu in a brochure left in our room and promoted at the front desk. We should have been warned when the front desk seemed surprised that we wanted to eat in the restaurant, offering to book us a local place instead. Our first surprise that evening: No sign of the promised menu. What was on offer bore no resemblance to the brochure, and was an odd selection of dishes all in a jumble rather than broken into starters and mains. Second surprise: The window table the hotel manager had specifically walked us into the restaurant that morning and told us he'd save for us was already occupied. The service at Anice Stellato was world class compared to here, where one man alone was working the nine tables of the restaurant and the hotel bar. We waited almost an hour between starters and mains. Third surprise: The biggest bill of the trip ... over £200 ... for the least amount of food and wine.

We split a decidedly mundane carpaccio of over-marinated beef which I suspect had also been left out longer than health standards would say is wise. (Piers' stomach was not its usual robust self the next morning.) Piers had badly overcooked tuna; the "tartare" of courgettes on the menu arrived as diced aubergine and potato. My mixed platter of fried local seafood was lukewarm and uninspiring. At least the wine the waiter recommended was good, but at 45 euro it should have been. At that price we paced ourselves and kept to one bottle, a challenge since the creeping service meant our dinner took more than three hours. Still trying to make it a special evening we tried for dessert. Piers' plate of local cheese lacked diversity and had too many hard, sharp varieties that are better cooked with than eaten alone, and my tiramisu ... really the only appealing thing on the menu since they were out of the chocolate fondant ... was well below what I can whip up myself at home. A final insult: they refused to serve tap water. Bottled only. That, my friends, is simply blatant extortion. And after all those indignities, it took another 20 minutes to get the bill.

Sadly, the outrageous rip off off the restaurant countered the great deal we got on our room, and left me with both a literal and figurative bad taste in my mouth. While I still recommend the hotel, based on that experience I will be shopping around for other options for my next visit. Fortunately, I have the memory of the other restaurants to remind me that you can dine well in Venice, with enough research and planning.

Zanipolo tops new and surprising sights in this Venice trip

Venice's glory days were the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, when the world's riches throbbed through its markets and the ensuing profits made the Republic a power to be respected. These are the centuries that gave us most of the city's architectural and artistic masterpieces. I, however, love Venice in her decline.

By the 18th century she was without political power and world trade was flowing through other channels. This, however, was when the rest of the world fell most in love with her. English aristocrats flocked here on their grand tours, Goethe wrote descriptions that drew early tourists and anyone with money who wanted a fast, decadent life with great clothes and an exotic mask could rent a palace and live the dream.

Ca'Rezzonico, an impressive palace on the Grand Canal, exemplifies this age. Not completed until 1756, it's hundreds of years younger than its neighbours and strikingly different in its neoclassical regularity. A few years after completion, a family member became Pope and another made a fabulously prosperous marriage. At the time, the combination made this palazzo one of Venice's most significant places to be seen. It's thus wonderfully logical that it's now a museum to Venice in the 18th century.

While there's an interesting collection of paintings and some impressive pieces of furniture, the real thing to see here is the palace itself. The main rooms wind around a piano nobile of exceptional height. You enter on the side away from the Grand Canal, climbing a magnificent white marble staircase to arrive in a ballroom covered with some of the most magnificent tromp l'oeil (fool the eye) paintings you'll ever see. Billowing draperies, columns, balconies, gods and putti thrusting their limbs into the room all look real, but are simply illusions created with paint. There follows a procession of rooms with grand ceilings, most with more frolicking deities and fat baby angels who hover over slightly more restrained classical interiors. At the front, two salons and a great hall look over the Grand Canal. Here the decor is a bit less flamboyant, if only because it's hard to compete with the picture postcard views out the towering windows.

There are two more floors, mostly filled with paintings. Here the architecture is less grand, but still worth a wander. Though of great architectural and historic significance, Ca'Rezzonico is a second tier museum in this city and sees far less traffic than the main sites; we were alone in many rooms and never had more than six people for company even in the biggest spaces.

Another blockbuster without a lot of tourist traffic is La Fenice opera house. This is certainly, in part, because it's very expensive (8 euro) for the little bit you see, and not on the Venice Card scheme. Thus only the dedicated are there. But for either the serious opera fan, or those who wonder at architectural re-creation, this is a must see. The place couldn't have a better name. Fenice means phoenix, and this theatre has, like its avian namesake, risen from the ashes more than once. The most recent fire destroyed the entire theatre in 1996. Fifteen years later you'd never know it, as the whole place has been rebuilt to the exact details of old.

Tourists get an audio tour with their admission that talks them through the history of the building and the story of the latest restoration. You get to explore the entry foyer before going upstairs to look at an impressive model of the building inside and out. After that you can settle into a seat in the royal box to take a good look at the theatre itself. The box is so opulent, with its gilded putti, baroque woodwork and copious mirrors, that it actually takes a moment for you to look beyond. You then see an impressive galleried space around a traditional stage, topped by a ceiling painted to look like a dawn sky. A few frolicking deities seem to have flown over from the Ca'Rezzonico. The colour scheme is actually a bit off-putting: pink, light blue, white and gold, it is feminine bordering on what the English would dismiss as "twee". But it's of its time (the 1830s), and would no doubt be a great place to see and be seen while enjoying a performance. I don't know if we were lucky, or if this is a regular feature, but a pianist was practicing on stage while we were there, which added greatly to the atmosphere.

Once you tear yourself away from the theatre, you can explore a series of reception rooms at the front of the building used for entertainment during the intervals. Clearly, they also do a fair amount of corporate entertaining here, and the ballroom at the end of the complex is used for smaller concerts. If you can't get to a concert here, then paying to take the self guided tour is an excellent second best.

Venice's naval museum was another new sight on this visit and, I'm afraid, a rather disappointing one. You'd expect a former maritime empire that derived all its fortune and power from trade over sea routes, and whose capital works on water rather than roads, to have one of the best naval collections on Earth. And it might, if it had several million to invest in installation, explanation and the building itself. Alas, this is like so many of Italy's museums: a treasure trove of great stuff bundled together into a crumbling building with little staff and only the barest, dry and academic labels for what you're looking at. (And yes, my Italian is good enough to tell you that the locals don't get much better than the English translations.) Its organisation is also confusing, as you're confronted with World War II upon entry ... let's face it, not Italy's finest hour, although Piers said the manned torpedo on display was actually justifiably famous ... and don't get to the glory years until you're upstairs.

It is, however, worth the making the effort for the model of the Bucintoro alone. One of the most lavish crafts ever built, probably second only to the legendary barge on which Cleopatra seduced Mark Antony, the Bucintoro was essentially a floating version of the Doge's palace. It represented Venice's special relationship with the sea, and played its biggest ceremonial role on Ascension Day, when the Doge, the most important members of court, ambassadors and special guests would board to be rowed into the Adriatic, where the Doge would throw a golden ring into the sea to "marry" her for another year and proclaim his dominion. The model is meticulous in its detail, showing the parquet floors, stately throne, lavish sculptural carving and typically Venetian levels of gold leaf. You'll wish you could, Alice-in-Wonderland-like, sip some potion to shrink so you could scramble around inside it. Alas, you'll just have to stand behind the glass and gawp.

The museum has many rooms of detailed ship's models, and a good collection of full-sized gondole. (Yes, I spelled it right. That's the plural of gondola.) A good example of the poor labeling ... it's from the Rough Guide, rather than anything in the museum itself, that I learned the reason for so many, and such exact, models is that the craftsmen in the dockyards worked from these rather than any kind of blueprint. Make sure you get to the gondole rooms, where you'll see the range of craft from the workday basics to the lavish private boats built to take aristocratic families to grand social occasions. (Even in the 1830s, when they were building La Fenice, they insisted on both a water and a land entry, as the most fashionable would make a grand arrival by gondola.) Also look out for the model of the clever lift system which surrounded a ship and elevated its draft, allowing heavily loaded vessels of the 18th and 19th centuries to get into the shallow lagoon. You'll also find galleries of naval costume, sea shells, ship models from other countries, even a Swedish room dedicated to Vikings and several artistic and military partnerships between the Swedes and the Venetians (who knew?). With limited time, however, you're best to stick to the highlights mentioned above.

My last new discovery was a trio of magnificent churches. The blockbuster amongst them was the basilica of Santi Giovanni e Paolo (known in the local dialect as Zanipolo), a place which, I'll admit, it now embarrasses me to say I didn't even know existed. It was a shocking hole in my art historical knowledge of the city, because Zanipolo should be on anyone's Venetian top 5. A vast Gothic church, its undecorated ceilings and large windows make it lighter and less claustrophobic than the heavily decorated St. Mark's. But don't imagine you'll find austerity. This is the burial place of most of the doges, and almost every inch of the wall space is filled with grand tombs. Most are monumental sculptures. A few are painted. (There are some fine Veroneses.) One portrays the grisly story of a doge who was captured by the Turks and flayed alive; his dried skin is preserved in the urn near the top of the memorial. Outside, don't miss the ornate marble facade of the building next door. It is, believe it or not, the hospital.

That same treatment of marble ... multi-coloured yet symmetrical, ornate yet ordered in its Renaissance sensibilities ... is the most memorable aspect of the second of our church discoveries, Santa Maria Dei Miracoli. It's a small place compared to Zanipolo, remarkable because the interior has the exact same marble walls as outside. It's a striking yet calming effect, which therefore doesn't distract you from the church's most unusual architectural feature. The altar is raised a full story above the rest of the church, up an awe-inspiring white marble staircase. It's so ancient Roman in its influences that you almost expect Augustus to emerge at the top to welcome a triumphant general home. Instead, you get a lovely but unremarkable statue of the Madonna and child that was reputed to work miracles, hence the church's name. The only thing that throws off this vision of classical elegance is the ceiling. Don't look up, if you can help it. The barrel vault is dark wood of many coffers, each painted with a different scene. As if that Venetian tendency for excess took over at the end and the architects said "well, we have to cover something with ornate bits and bobs."

The final church that gets a nod is Madonna Dell'Orto, located conveniently next to our hotel thus un-missable. It's probably not worth going out of your way for, but if in this area, it's worth popping in to admire its austere (for Venice) Gothicism and its excellent collection of Tintorettos (he's buried here).

So there you are. It was my fifth trip to Venice. I had four days. I managed to explore six places I'd never seen before. And the best part? There's still a generous list of museums, palaces and churches into which I have yet to set foot. Now that's a city with hidden depths.

Venice's "must sees" are familiar, impressive ... and cleaner than they used to be

You know it's been a while since you've been someplace when they manage to build a whole new airport in your absence. It's a bit disconcerting.

I always liked arriving at Venice's tiny, old world airport where you walked straight out of the terminal and onto a boat dock. But no worries. Venice, I assured Piers, was the most unchanging of all European cities. The one almost untouched by chain restaurants, where all the stores were local and all the sites hadn't evolved much since Ruskin wrote his guide. Then I cleared the sparkling new immigration area and saw the big poster for the Hard Rock Cafe. Was I about to be proven wrong? Had Venice sold out?

Mostly not, although there are a few more touches of modernity here. In addition to the Hard Rock, there are two McDonalds. But on the whole, this is still a place into which the modern world has barely barged (you'll find almost no free wi fi; I haven't been that out of touch in years), and where you're going to be paying attention to the same things your grandparents did. The biggest difference these days: things are a lot cleaner.

Everything around the hub of St. Mark's square is in the middle of a major restoration campaign. It's a bit disappointing for the first time visitor, as many of the elegant facades along the sides of the square are under scaffolding and the base of the bell tower is a construction site hidden behind fences. It's definitely not a Canaletto view at the moment. But work is finished on both St. Mark's cathedral and the clock tower to the left, producing a shocking transformation. The church was always a bit overwhelming and garish in its decorative profusion, but you didn't get much color. Mosaics and sculptural detail rose out of a dull gray stone. Now you can see that all the flat surfaces are different color marbles, from the palest pastels to deep reds and greens. There's no symmetry at all, of course. Every column is a different shade. One expanse of wall might feature 10 different marbles. It's impressive, lush, beautiful and a bit ugly all at once.

Much more restrained is the clock tower, an amazing piece of 15th century engineering. It's gorgeous golden dials, pointers and symbols on a bright blue ground show you not only the date and time, but moon phase, what symbol of the zodiac you're under and all sorts of arcane astrological details. Up top, two larger-than-life metal shepherds swing mallets against a big bell to ring the hour. This is all set within, or upon, an elegant construction of white stone that's now dazzling in its cleanliness.

White is not a colour you see much once you get inside the famous church next door. Gold dominates, and those early Christian mosaics, fresh from restoration, are sparkling like a pile of newly cleaned jewelry. There are so many things to look at in St. Mark's, it's hard to know where to start, and nearly impossible to rest your eye on just one thing. The ancient mosaic floor is justifiably famous. Every inch of wall space is crammed with mosaics, monuments or sculpture. There are side chapels, rooms of relics, a treasury, opulent hanging lanterns, highly decorated domes and, of course, hundreds of milling tourists. Frankly, it's a place you can't stay for too long without being completely overwhelmed. I find it wise here to concentrate on a handful of details each visit, as it would take years to actually take it all in. Piers was pushed over the edge by the little room filled with more than 100 reliquaries. (According to The Rough Guide, it's rarely open. So we should consider ourselves lucky.) Toes, locks of hair, bone fragments, bits of the true cross, the stone that martyred some saint. It was all too reminiscent of the worst excesses of the pre-Reformation church. Protestantism rose in him and we decided it was time to check out more secular delights.

The logical next step is the Doge's palace. St. Mark's was, after all, simply the Doge's private chapel for much of its history, rather than the official cathedral. Which should immediately clue you in that you're unlikely to find humility or simplicity in the man's house, either. The palace is interesting in that it's both the home of an elected official and the seat of government. For most of history the Doge didn't actually have much power. He was a figurehead and the brand ambassador for one of the world's most impressive trading empires. Everything about the place is built to impress: the Doge's quarters to awe visiting ambassadors, the huge assembly halls to remind the younger governmental members of their place, the smaller rooms of justice to make citizens quake and bow in awe of the all powerful committees of state. You wander through so many rooms here that, like the church, your eyes start to dull. But it's a rich feast. Magnificent carved or plastered ceilings, some in dark wood, some painted, some gilded. Some all three. There are many impressive paintings, most of them exceedingly large propaganda pieces designed to promote Venetian power or capture its glorious moments of history.

The most jaw dropping room is probably the sala del maggior consiglio, one of the largest rooms I think I've ever been in. It was built to hold a meeting of every man entitled, by his family's entry in the official "golden book", to the ruling classes. By the mid 16th century this was around 2500. Tintoretto's amazing Paradiso is the largest thing in a room of massive paintings; it features 500 individuals all painted in detail. My favourite room, however, is the salla della scudo, a long reception room decorated with frescoed maps of all the places in the world with which Venice did business. (They're later copies of the 15th century originals.) It's a fascinating world perspective from the time of Marco Polo. There's a passable armory; not nearly as good as the one at the Tower of London, but useful for re-capturing the attention of boys whose attention has started to flag from too much art appreciation. At the end of the tour you'll wander through the dungeons, which provide quite a grim contrast and would have sent a shudder down our spines even had they not been cold and damp enough to make us feel we were trapped in a refrigerator's fruit and veg drawer.

Next on the iconic, must see list is the Rialto Bridge. It's a truly awe-inspiring piece of architecture, with a gracious, sweeping arch below and an arcade of shops above rising to a peak dominated by a triumphal arch. Unfortunately the view is marred a bit by the fact that it's the shop backs that face toward the canal, and these are often coated with graffiti. The most elegant views of the bridge are either from a distance, or from the bridge itself. Up top, the store fronts glitter with glass baubles, jewelry and silks (we found great deals on men's ties and cravats), parting at the bridge's summit to offer you rest in sophisticated loggias on each side with some of the best views of the Grand Canal.

After St. Marks, the palace and the Rialto, the island of Murano comes on most people's top sites lists. In addition to being canny traders, the Venetians held a monopoly on the manufacture of the world's most sophisticated glass for almost two centuries. All the glass blowers were kept in splendid incarceration on Murano. A miniature Venice with lovely houses, stately canals and gracious churches, the workmen and their families lived far more prosperous lives that the typical craftsmen of the era. The catch was that they couldn't leave the island. If they did, legend had it, the government would send an assassin after them to protect Venice's coveted trade secrets. Today the monopoly is gone, there are far fewer glass blowers and any of them are free to leave. They're more likely to be producing baubles for tourists, chandeliers for hotels and restaurants or art glass for rich collectors rather than glassware for the tables of Europe's monarchs and aristos. The work, however, is just as beautiful.

One of the best places to see the continuity is the glass museum, which has displays of glass from Roman times all the way up to modern art pieces of today. Don't miss the impressive Barovier wedding cup in deepest cobalt blue, painted with scenes of courtly life in the Renaissance, and the 18th century glass table decorations that allowed you to build an entire formal Italian garden down the centre of your banquet.

Most of Murano is, unsurprisingly, glass shops. The moment you come off the vaporetto you'll be greeted by touts luring you to their demonstrations. Try to avoid these, as they are usually assemblages of work of marginal quality but generous mark ups, fronted by glass blowers of only basic skill. I highly recommend Franco Schiavon's gallery at Fondamenta dei Vetrai 15. They have their own workshop in back, which they'll happily take you into and explain the process while the craftsmen work. Downstairs there's the usual selection of glassware, jewelry, lampshades and chandeliers, but of a higher quality than most. Upstairs their gallery veers towards the collector, with displays of some truly ravishing pieces and gold gilt glasses fit for royal tables. Were I a rich woman, I could have spent a lot of money here.

And speaking of shopping, one of the places here that always gets a repeat visit from me is Paolo Olbi's tiny book binding and paper shop. He's been hand crafting books and desk items from decorated leather and marbelised Florentine papers for almost 50 years, still producing every item himself while his sister works the shop. Over the years I've bought exquisite notebooks for myself and watercolour portfolios for my mother. This trip we invested in the photo album and guest book for our wedding, each made from luscious white leather tooled in floral patterns. You'll probably pass his shop on the calle della mandola on the way to the Accademia Bridge.

Familiar yet still surprising, these top sites are worth repeat visits. The wonder of Venice, however, is that there's so much to explore beyond the familiar. And once you get off the beaten track, it's amazing how few tourists you'll find around you. Next entry I'll explore those new discoveries.

Opulent Venice works its magic ... sort of ... for a Valentine's Day break

The challenge: you, one quarter Sicilian and imbued with the love of all things Italian, want to inspire in your Anglo-Danish, Francophile fiancé a similar appreciation. Where to start?

Going with a conjunction of timing and tradition I thought I'd try Venice at Valentine's day. This much-cliched combo must inspire some magic, right?

Well, he wasn't glassy eyed and rhapsodic at the end of it. There were parts he liked, and Byzantine-Baroque elements he found so-over-the top that his brain simply stopped processing. I became more firm in my belief that the symmetry, logic and elegance of the Florentine renaissance is going to do the trick. But, in the mean time, we bobbed down canals on vaporettos, wandered past mouldering Gothic palaces, froze to our bones in grand but unheated museums and enjoyed quite a few very fine meals. With an early Saturday departure and a late Tuesday return, the four-day weekend felt like a much longer break, and we were both relaxed and culturally sated before returning to our desks on Wednesday morning.

So, the overview. We went out on a package tour with Expedia. Since the debacle of snow closures at Heathrow over Christmas I'm less of a fan of the company (I'm still waiting for my £800 refund for a canceled flight, which would have been far easier to get had I gone direct with the airline) but when it comes to flight and hotel packages for European city breaks, Expedia still tends to deliver the best deal. For a bit less than the trans-Atlantic flight Piers never took, we both got to Venice on BA and spent three nights in a five star hotel with a room upgrade. Given that a 5 star room in Venice can easily go for 200 a night, I was satisfied that we'd scored a bargain.

We stayed at the Hotel Dei Dogi, a place I discovered on a shopping weekend with a friend nearly a decade ago. It has lavish, classically Venetian interiors (befitting the family palace and then the French embassy that it once was), the largest private garden in Venice and it's own jaunty motorboat that zips you from the canal in front of the hotel down to St. Marks on a regular shuttle schedule. And yet, because it's in the quiet, off-the-beaten-track area of Cannaregio, its prices are about 30% below what you'd pay for an equivalent hotel closer to St. Mark's.

I have to admit, I actually prefer Cannaregio. It's heavily residential, so its lanes and canals are filled with locals. The absence of tourists means it's quiet and, late at night wandering down silent lanes with the canal glimmering beside you, wildly romantic. Its dominant church, Madonna dell'Orto (a stone's throw from the hotel), is a masterpiece of Gothic restraint not often seen in this city. It's the district closest to the airport, so either a straight shot by the Alilaguna shuttle (13 euro) or a short walk from the Piazzale Roma and the train station gets you there with ease. Once you figure out the route, it's a tolerable 20-minute walk to St. Mark's. And, best of all, it's the district in Venice with all the best restaurants. What's not to like? If someone else would like to pay for me to stay at the Danieli, I'll be there in a heartbeat. But on my own cash? Dei Dogi it is.

As Piers had never been to Venice, the plan was as follows. Day 1, having cleared the airport and checked into our hotel by 1:30, was devoted to rambling around the city and getting a feel for the place. It was, amusingly, also devoted to trying to find someplace to watch the England v. Italy rugby match that kicked off at 2:30. We went to a spot near the train station where the girl behind the bar helpfully went through nearly a score of sports channels on the satellite, but no rugby. A disappointed Piers sucked it up and fell into sightseeing. Ironically, we arrived back at the hotel to find the game on national TV with a time lag, so he got to see the second half after all.

Venice is such an opulent, decadent place, almost overwhelming in its sights, smells and design, I always figure you should ease a new visitor into it. Climb to the centre of the Rialto Bridge and gaze over the Grand Canal. Walk along it for a bit. Wander over to St. Mark's. Gape at the church, watch the clock strike, stroll through the piazzetta to see the outside of the Doge's Palace. Gawp across the basin at the rows of gondole, the outer islands and the Palladian magnificence of Santa Maria della Salute. Up the Riva degli Schiavoni for a bit. Check out the bridge of sighs. Look back at the that most famous of Venetian scenes. And then, frankly, quit while you're ahead. Because any more, as a first timer, is going to put you into sensory overload.

Sunday we concentrated on the glass-makers' island of Murano, then the museum at the Ca'Rezzonico. Monday St. Mark's, the Doge's Palace and La Fenice theatre. Tuesday the naval museum, the church of Zanipolo and shopping. And then a mid-evening flight home. For me, it was a great balance between the familiar and, though this was at least my fifth visit, a good array of new stuff. That's one of the beauties of Venice that goes beyond its lovely skin: There's enough to see in this compact territory to keep you occupied for years.

A few more essential tips for any such sightseeing breaks in Venice.

First, go off season. Even now, in the lowest of low times, we queued to get into St. Mark's, packed body-to-body on the No. 1 vaporetto up the Grand Canal and found some of the smaller lanes to be uncomfortably crowded. Nothing in this city is worth the hell of overcrowding it experiences on school holidays.

Second, don't plan to do anything quickly. Walks from point A to B may only take 25 minutes if you're moving briskly and know where you're going. But if you get turned about (highly likely in the warren of twisting lanes and canals bereft of easy sightlines to identifiable landmarks), or have to take a boat anywhere, that quick jaunt can easily take an hour. Don't sweat it, you're on vacation.

Third, look into tourist cards. If you're planning to go into at least two attractions a day (palaces, museums, churches) for three or more days, the HelloVenezia card is a good investment. Just under 40 euro per person for a 7-day pass, it not only works out cheaper but encourages you to pop your head into attractions that you might otherwise skip. An additional 30-ish euro gets you a 72-hour pass for the transport system. I'm undecided on the value of this one. If you're not planning to leave the main islands, you can probably walk everywhere and save the cash. Especially if your hotel, like Dei Dogi, has its own shuttle. But a trip to Murano and the ability to hop back and forth up the Grand Canal probably meant we broke even.

Fourth, try to only eat at recommended restaurants. Venice is notorious for having the worst food in Italy. Unsurprising when you think that this is a city supported almost entirely by tourism. When you're not working for return customers, it's all about being in a good location and snagging passing trade for a meal palatable enough to keep them from complaining while making you as big a margin as possible. So get off the beaten track and go for places validated by a critic like the Rough Guide. Or this blog, of course, which will naturally be getting around to restaurant reviews.

But first, we have some culture to discuss in coming days...

RIP: Joanlee Ferrara

My mother died on 23 January.

Two years after a terminal cancer diagnosis, seven weeks after returning from her last trip to England and starting a steady decline, and two days after becoming confined to her bed and ceasing conversation, she slipped away quietly in her sleep in the early hours of a Sunday morning.

She'd had a good talk and been given the last rights by the local priest, had been with those she loved most most, was never in too much pain (thanks to the morphine) and, most importantly, spent those last days in her beloved house, surrounded by family heirlooms and looking out the broad picture window at her beautiful woods. It wasn't a bad way to go.

Friends who've been through this tell me it probably won't hit me for a while. That grief ebbs and flows, triggered by silly little things, and that once you lose a parent there's a hole that can simply never be filled. That's all still to come. Now it's just a jumble of emotions kept at bay by a "to do" list of staggering proportions. Being an only child has its advantages but not, I assure you, when it comes to sorting out an estate.

Had I had the time and inclination over the past weeks I could have written a score of entries on this whole experience. But this blog is supposed to entertain and inform, not burden you with melancholy, so let me just offer a round up of the most salient observations through this strange time.

Hospice is a remarkable organisation, and all who work within in are on a fast track to sainthood. I don't know what I would have done without these people. They were magnificent, taking away stresses, providing answers, getting rid of all the little worries so I could spend quality time with mom at the end. I particularly appreciated their positive, pragmatic attitude. Death is a part of life. It comes to all of us and, actually, it comes in a fairly predictable way. They removed the gloom, fear and uncertainty, helped us to know what to expect and to deal with each stage as it came. All as part of a natural, if unpleasant, evolution.

Family has nothing to do with blood. Mom's death, as expected, showed where the closest bonds were, and who really counted as family. Her best friend from childhood flew in from Baltimore to be there until the end. My dearest friends from high school stepped in to be the sisters I needed to share the worst of the responsibilities. Her own high school friends, former students and a handful of close colleagues provided frequent support. And my father, her ex-husband, helped her make another kind of peace at the end. Death is, oddly, inextricably bound up with love, because it brings those you love most ... and who love you the most ... together.

People don't know how to handle it. Unfortunately, for every one helpful person there are five who make life more difficult. There are the people who don't know what to say, so inevitably state: "if there's anything I can do, just ask." Don't. I learned early on, this is an instinctive statement, like "have a nice day". People don't really mean it, and if you actually take them at their word and ask them to do something specific, they quickly find excuses and disappear. The people who actually want to help will come up with specific suggestions for what they can do, then come on over and do it.

Then there are the people who can't handle illness. They just disappear. They certainly don't visit. This is a shame, especially when they're really close friends. But you have to give them a break, as you realise they just can't cope with the situation. But it makes those visitors who are uncomfortable with terminal illness, yet fight their fears and come anyway, even more wonderful.

Most difficult for me were the people who wanted to have long conversations about how things were going or, after the fact, how she died and what her last days were like. Everyone handles grief differently, but it certainly did me no good whatsoever to have people weeping at me or talking away for hours, especially when my stress levels were through the roof because of everything that needed to get done.

God bless that inner circle who came over, took tasks off the to do list or simply sat with mom so I could get out of the house for a while. If you want to help someone in this situation, that's the way to go.

Nothing shapes you like your parents. I've always known it, of course, but the past weeks have brought into sharp relief just how responsible my mother was for shaping me. In many ways, it was rebellion. My desire for a tidy desk, my desire for logic rather than emotion in times of stress, my hatred of long phone conversations and my attempts at budgeting (such as they are), are all reactions against things my mother did that drove me crazy. But my love for a beach, my passion for travel, my appreciation for culture and good food ... most of the things that drive this blog ... are all her passions, carried directly through to me. Both my parents always claimed that I inherited the best of them and managed to skip the worst. If I did that with Joanlee, then I'm proud and honoured.

I could go on, but I think that's enough. For those of you who knew her, there will be a memorial service on 12 March in the Villa Duchesne chapel in St. Louis. It would have been her 71st birthday. She would, no doubt, have expected me to be taking her on a cruise or a trip to some glamorous location. Here's hoping a host of saints and angels is doing that for her instead. I wonder if Saint Anthony is any good at mixing up a rum punch?