It is one of the most common questions in travel planning, and in Venice it is particularly pointed: do I book a private guided tour, or do I explore on my own?

Venice is in a paradox. It is one of the most visited cities on earth — welcoming somewhere between 25 and 30 million visitors a year into a historic centre with a resident population of fewer than 50,000 people — and it is also one of the most fragile. The same qualities that make it […]

There are cities with great art, and there are cities that are themselves works of art. Venice is rare among the places in the world that belong to the second category — a city where the architecture, the paintings, the sculptures and the urban fabric itself constitute a single, continuous artistic achievement that unfolded over […]

There is no city in the world quite like Venice — which means there is also no city quite like Venice to arrive in for the first time, map in hand, with no idea which way is north. The streets do not go where you expect them to. The bridges appear without warning. The water […]