Venice

Venice runs on a simple rule: the crowds arrive at 10am and leave by 6pm, and they almost never stray more than 300 metres from the Rialto–San Marco axis. Stay at least two nights and you get the early mornings and the evenings, when the alleys empty out and the city becomes eerily quiet, practically to yourself.

The city is split into six sestieri. San Marco is the showpiece and the most expensive. Cannaregio and Castello are where Venetians actually live and where you'll eat best for the money. Dorsoduro has the art museums and a student crowd; San Polo and Santa Croce sit either side of the Rialto market.

Note that Venice has been trialing charging a day-visitor access fee on many peak days for people not staying overnight. By our latest information the trial has concluded and there's no access fee. However, it's worthwhile to check the current rules before your trip.

Basilica di San Marco deserves a timed ticket and, if you can, the early-morning or evening slot when the gold mosaics catch the light. Next door, the Doge's Palace is worth it for the Secret Itineraries tour rather than the standard route.

For art, the Gallerie dell'Accademia (Bellini, Carpaccio, Titian) and the Peggy Guggenheim Collection sit ten minutes apart in Dorsoduro. The two churches worth crossing the city for are Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari (Titian's Assumption) and the Scuola Grande di San Rocco, wall-to-wall Tintoretto.

In odd-numbered years the Venice Biennale takes over the Giardini and Arsenale from spring to autumn, a genuinely different reason to visit.

Give a full day to the lagoon. Burano is the one to prioritise: fishermen's houses painted in saturated colours, a leaning campanile and far fewer people than Murano. Torcello, ten minutes further, holds the oldest building in the lagoon, a 7th-century basilica with Byzantine mosaics, and near-total silence.

Murano is glass, and worth an hour if you want to watch a furnace. For a beach afternoon, the Lido has actual sand and sea, reachable in 15 minutes on the vaporetto.

Venetian food is lagoon food: sarde in saor (sweet-sour sardines), baccalà mantecato, black cuttlefish-ink risotto, bigoli in salsa. The best cheap way to eat it is a cicchetti crawl - small plates at a bacaro bar with a glass of wine (un'ombra), moving on after each round. Cannaregio's Fondamenta della Misericordia and the lanes behind the Rialto market are the strongholds.

Avoid restaurants with photo menus and touts on the San Marco fringe. A rough sanity check: if it's within sight of a major landmark and has an English-first menu, walk two bridges further.

Fly into Marco Polo (VCE); the Alilaguna boat or a land bus plus vaporetto gets you in. Trains arrive at Santa Lucia, right on the Grand Canal. Once there you walk or take the vaporetto - a multi-day travel card pays for itself quickly. Gondolas are a fixed-price experience, not transport.

April–May and late September–October are the sweet spot: mild, long days, manageable crowds. Winter is atmospheric, cheap and foggy, with acqua alta flooding possible from October to January (raised walkways appear; bring waterproof boots). Carnival in February and July–August are the two periods to avoid unless the crowds are the point.