I visited the last time Venice in June 2013 and was lucky enough to be there during La Biennale. This year the biennale will start on 7^th June and will continue until end of November. June is a nice time to visit Venice as it is already warm enough, but it is not too hot and the canals are not yet smelling at all – my previous visit was in August and for me it was too crowded, too hot and had too much unpleasant scents (this you will understand after visiting Venice in the heat of summer…).

During La Biennale the city is full of modern art, even if you would not attend the main exhibition areas. I loved especially the Marc Quinn’s huge inflatable sculpture of pregnant Alison Lapper on the island of San Giorgio Maggiore – well, I love Marc Quinn’s controversial work in general, but this one you could not miss.

There are also several interesting art museums even outside the Biennale period. A permanent fantastic art exhibition together with changing collections can be found in Peggy Guggenheim Collection. The building used to be home for Peggy Guggenheim, a daughter of Benjamin Guggenheim who died on the SS Titanic. Peggy Guggenheim spent her early life in New York. She traveled to Europe in 1921, in 1937 opened and art gallery in London and in 1942 opened her first museum in New York.

In 1947 she decided to return to Europe and her collection was shown for the first time in Venice Biennale in 1948. In 1969 Peggy Guggenheim donated her palace in Venice and her collection to Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation. Peggy Guggenheim died in 1979 and her ashes are placed in the yard of her home in Venice, today turned into one of the finest small modern art museums in Europe. I have to say the collection was impressive, especially taking into account the fact that it is a private collection of an art lover.

After all the cultural experiences, when the sun sets down, take an aperitif at St Mark’s square in Caffè Florian’s terrace. Prices are high, but along with them you’ll get the view, some live music and contemporary art inside the café. Not to mention the fantastic original interior of Florian. And if you feel like escaping the crowds, head for Harry’s Bar. By the way, did you know that Bellini was invented at Harry’s Bar in 1948?

When it is time for dinner, you will not be mistreated in Venice. After a long day of sightseeing, try to avoid the mass tourist restaurants around St Mark’s Square and Rialto Bridge and head for the small alleys that hide all those fantastic bacàros, typical Venetian eateries. Don’t expect a five-course dinner in bacàro, as they are rather bars offering fantastic cichèti (called cicchètti in other parts of Italy), small snacks.

If you fancy a nice sitting dinner, there are many good restaurants to choose from. Check recommendation from Michelin for example, as they in addition to the ones with stars, present other good choices for recommended restaurants. And usually in my opinion, they have been right in their choices…

We had a nice dinner in Cip’s Club, a terrace restaurant of Cipriani, built on the water, that holds great nighttime views across the canal towards the Basilica di San Marco. Food, wine selection and service were as good as it should be in Cipriani. Especially I did enjoy their selection of local wines, as some of the best Pinot Grigio wines do come from outside Venice. However what impressed me most, were the herb gardens of Cipriani – they are near to perfect and must be the pride of Cipriani’s chefs and gardeners.

I am however not all that convinced of the name change of the good old Orient-Express into Belmond. To me it has lost part of the good old day excitement by this renaming and I am disappointed we did not take the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express honeymoon trip before the change… I sincerely hope the experience will still be “A journey like no other”!

In the morning of the day of departure, we woke up early for a gondola ride. Our daughter had especially wished to experience one. The 45-minute tour was absolutely relaxing and I cannot stop wondering the talent of the gondoliers. Not to mention the talent of the gondola builders. Best part along with the canals, was seeing the gondola entrance of the fantastic La Fenice opera house.

On this trip there was not enough time for visiting famous Aurora Beach Club in Lido and the architecturally interesting Venezia Santa Lucia railway station, but for sure we will be returning to Venice…