Fly from Nice to Venice

Although Venice is the favourite destination for romantic breaks, you don’t need to come as a couple to enjoy its magic. The city is so beautiful, so fascinating and so surprising that you can explore it alone for a whole weekend, without ever feeling the need for company. Because the City of Masks has many faces, and whatever you’re looking for, it’s sure to have something to win your heart.

So which Venice will you fall in love with…? The Venice of celebrations? The city of the famous Carnival, its enigmatic beauties with bewitching gazes, its colourful embroidered dresses and its masked balls. The Venice of culture? The city of the Art Biennale (held in odd-numbered years) and the Biennale of Architecture (in even-numbered years), the Museo Correr and it canvases by Bellini and Carpaccio, the Gallerie dell’Accademia with its paintings by Titien and Canaletto, the Peggy Guggenheim Collection and the Palazzo Grassi, dedicated to the greatest artists of the past and present. The Venice of the botteghe? The city of the last artisan workshops, Burano lace, Murano glass, Fortuny fabrics, carnival masks and marbled paper. The Venice of monuments? With Saint Mark’s Basilica, the Bridge of Sighs, the Doge’s Palace, the Rialto Bridge and the Scuola Grande di San Rocco

• Visit the Doge’s Palace and Saint Mark’s Basilica, dazzling with its gold ground mosaics and its marble.
• Catch a vaporetto to Burano and discover an astonishing little island, with picturesque, colourful fishermen’s houses.
• Work on your tan on the fine sand beaches of the Lido, and get on a bike to pedal through the quiet roads of Venice’s beach resort.
• Head to the island of Giudecca, to enjoy a magnificent view over Venice and savour a Spritz, the city’s iconic cocktail, at the Belmond Hotel Cipriani (as seen in James Bond).
• Get up early to wander around Rialto Market, where Venetians go to stock up their store cupboard, and just a short walk away, breathe the delicious scents of the spices at the Drogheria Mascari, an institution among foodies.
• Take a seat around one of the tables at Caffè Florian, the oldest cafe in Venice, as well as the most famous and undoubtedly the most beautiful.
• Be like Goethe, Wagner, George Sand, Balzac, Dickens, Zola and many others before you, by drinking tea at Danieli, a legendary palace located near to Piazza San Marco.
• Try a glass of Soave and a few cicchetti (Venice’s answer to tapas), in a bacaro, the local wine bar. Need some recommendations? Vino Vero, Il Paradiso Perduto, Al Squero, or Do Mori, Venice’s oldest bacaro at almost 600 years old.
• Choose your mask at Ca’ Macana, the workshop that made the enchanting masks for Stanley Kubrick’s film “Eyes Wide Shut”.
• Visit the workshop of Alberto Valese, one of the last Venetian masters of ebru, the traditional art of paper marbling, which came from Japan via Turkey.