Grand Canal

It may be the biggest cliché in the world to sail down the Grand Canal in a gondola at twilight with your own true love, but it’s also one of the most unforgettable clichés in which you could ever indulge.

Although the gold and frescoes have long ago worn off the fantasy façades of its palaces, the Canalazzo, as the Venetians call it, has not entirely lost the colour of past ages. It has simply become a little more prosaic, chock-a-block with grunting vaporetti, private boats and the workaday barges, carrying lettuces, bathtubs, cartons of Coca-Cola and sides of beef all over Venice.

In this city of water we offer a Grand Canal tour instead of a walk – if not a gondola, take the slowpoke no.1 accelerato.

As most people take their first ride along Venice’s main highway from either the train station or Piazzale Roma, this tour begins at the north end rather than in James Bond Casino Royale style, swanning up from the Lagoon in a 54-foot sailing yacht (the first to travel up the Grand Canal for 300 years, after the filmmakers were given special permission).

The Grand Canal also appeared in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1988)

You could do this trip in an hour and a half or so; or you could make a day of it, stopping for lunch and hopping off to visit any of the museums and churches along the way.