Venice is a delightful place to visit for a short city break, or for an extended holiday.

As you cross the long causeway by train or road, you enter a land of magic. You're going to be saying goodbye to traffic for as long as you remain on the main part of Venice. So no more fears of crossing busy roads. Just be careful you don't have too much wine and fall into one of the canals instead! Think of your local town and imagine all the roads turning into canals and the buses becoming boats and you will begin to imagine something of Venice.

The old part of Venice covers an area which can easily be covered on foot. For example, you can walk from the station to St Mark's Square in about 45 minutes. But you'll probably want to travel on one of the 'vaporetti' and enjoy the trip up the Grand Canal - it's always the best way to arrive in Venice.

What you do in Venice depends on what you like to do, and who you are, and, to some extent, on the season. You may wish to do very little but relax and soak up the atmosphere, taking the occasional vaporetto trip to relieve the boredom! Wander around St Mark's Square taking in the live music offered to people sitting in the cafés, take a look at some of the art Galleries (the Guggenheim is our favourite), arrange to go to the Venice opera, take a stroll around the famous Jewish Ghetto, walk across the Rialto and take a look at the largest of street markets (besides catering for tourists, you'll discover so much local fish, fruit and vegetables that you'll plan to cook for yourselves every day!). Take the map and discover some of the back streets (or back canals!) and get a feel of the place from a Venetian's point of view. Take a vaporetto to the Lido (the island with a wonderful beach on the Adriatic) and take a swim - be warned there is traffic on this island, so don't let it spoil the magic of your visit. Take a vaporetto to Murano and enjoy watching the glass blowing.

And then you'll discover such fabulous venues to eat that you'll forget about the food you purchased at the market and eat out anyway, ending up with a final trip home in a vaporetto - it feels very different from taking the last train home from Waterloo!