Where to eat in Venice

Sara Scarpa loves the tradition of the Venetian pub crawl, and here she shares some of her favourite venues for great wine and authentic cicchetti… Photos by Iain Reid Antica Osteria Ruga Rialto (left) Located off the same main calle, just a few metres along on the way to San Polo, this is an historical osteria […]

Giro d’ombre: a cicchetti and wine tour of Venice

The Giro d’ombre is the Venetian equivalent of a pub crawl. Needless to say, this being Italy, there is plenty of food to enjoy along the way. Venice native Sara Scarpa is your guide… Photos by Iain Reid   We were standing at the bar enjoying a plate filled with some baccalà mantecato (dried salt […]

Una piccola sosta: Hotel Heureka, Venice

Step through the doors of this restored palazzo in Cannaregio – where modern design meets the architecture of the past… Words by Amanda Robinson, photos by Hotel Heureka    On a quiet backwater in Cannaregio, you could easily walk past the unprepossessing entrance to Hotel Heureka, a 16th-century palazzo revived and reopened in 2017. Just […]

Forgotten islands of the Venice Lagoon

The Venice Lagoon contains more than a hundred islands – some small, some large; some natural, some man-made. Sara Scarpa invites us on an island-hopping expedition… Photos by Iain Reid   Often, on a sunny summer morning when we are in my home town of Venice, my husband and I will cycle from the centre […]

Learning to Row in Venice

Mark Nicholls visits Venice, where he goes beyond the usual tourist sites to take lessons in rowing like a real gondolier… Photos by Sharon Nicholls unless otherwise stated Nan McElroy is patiently attempting to teach me the technique. The words grip, twist, lunge, push and return are in the instructions, chanted like a coded mantra, but […]

My life in Venice…

Linda Little from Sydney, Australia, bought a two-bedroom apartment in the San Polo district of Venice in early 2016. It sits three floors up in a canalside townhouse, in a quiet area close to all the city’s major sights, and Linda gets to enjoy watching gondolas passing beneath her balcony. She and her partner spend […]

Love in Venice

For some people, there has only ever been one ‘City of Romance’ Many towns are called the ‘City of Love’ – Rome, Verona and Paris, to name but three. For Sara Scarpa, however, none can match the claims of her native Venice, home to Casanova, Byron, Carnival, and countless secret little places where lovers have […]