"La Serenissima? Whatever!" a Venice Travel Page by jayhawk2000

Before your visit you feel fraught with expectation:

Will the canals really be filled with gondolas? Yes, but only to cart tourists paying princely sums. See my 'transportation' tip for an authentic (and affordable) gondola ride.

Are the churches as glorious as they say? San Marco is extravagant but so popular they often operate a 'conveyor belt' system when you are not allowed to stop and admire it.

If you were to take only one piece of advice, STAY THE NIGHT. The vast majority of tourists visit for one day and leave by late afternoon, vanishing as if magicked away by a wizard's wand.

Book yourself into a room to savour the city after the rush.

Take a twilight stroll and listen as the squares fill with locals embarking on their passegiatta.

Watch the sun set and compare the sight of a smudged orange globe hung in a purple sky against one of JMW Turner's watercolours.

Sit on the pavement outside some back street pizzeria and while away an hour or two over a meal with friends. Follow this with ice cream from a gelateria on the plaza.

Catch a vaporetto (they run all night) and proceed down the Grand Canal past the spot-lit villas, churches and monuments.

Get lost in the dark and dank alleys as the bells toll the early hours and the anchors that keep the islands in place loosen their grip on the seabed...