Holidays to Venice

For canals, cathedrals, cicchetti and Campari, a Venice holiday beckons! Home to 100-plus islands and 400-plus bridges, the Floating City will send your wow-ometer rocketing off the charts.

City breaks

Easy to get to from the UK (it’s just over two hours by plane from London), Venice is a top choice for the kind of city break you’ll be banging on about even after the cows have come home.

Colourful houses? Check. Bridge of Sighs? Check. Bee-yoo-tee-full architecture? Check. Charming cafes, tasty eateries, classy bars? Check. Culture, history, entertainment? Check. Look, if you can forget about the tourists, Venice absolutely nails the short break, last-minute break, cheeky break and romantic city break brief.

Current affairs

Loved-up, cheesy romantic? Yeah, Venice was made for you. Swanning around this fairytale city is kind of like being in your own romcom – minus all the drama and Hugh Grant, of course.

So take a gondola cruise along the Grand Canal, enjoy long lunches and gelato overlooking the lagoon, stroll hand-in-hand along car-free streets after dark and … well, the list goes on. This is, after all, the City of Love.

Art smarts

It’s no surprise that Venice has a healthy smattering of art galleries and museums. The Gallerie dell'Accademia is perfect for big names like Carpaccio to Bellini (the artists, not the dish or drink!) To indulge in Carpaccio and Bellini, however, you can pop over to Harry’s Bar where they were both invented!

The Peggy Guggenheim Museum isn’t to be missed either, both for its massive collection of art (think Picasso, Dalí, Miró), and the canal-side palace it’s all housed in.

History at every turn

One minute you’ll be admiring the iconic Basilica di San Marco, the next you’ll be gawping at the 18th-century opera house Teatro La Fenice and the one after that you’ll be gazing at the canal-facing Palazzo Malipiero … nobody does historic eye-candy quite like Venice!

And don’t forget the islands. Check out beautiful mosaics (the oldest in Venice) in the Basilica di Santa Maria Assunta in Torcello and, over on Murano, learn about Venetian glass making which started in the 13th century.