Venice

Elect's take

"Venice is the city that makes me most grateful that it exists. The combination of the architecture, the light on the water, the silence of the smaller canals and the extraordinary concentration of art and history creates an experience of beauty that I find genuinely difficult to leave behind."

St Mark's Basilica is one of the most beautiful buildings in the world, its golden mosaics and Byzantine opulence creating an interior of overwhelming richness. The Doge's Palace adjacent is a masterpiece of Gothic architecture with extraordinary state rooms. The Grand Canal, traversed by the legendary gondola or the practical vaporetto, provides a constantly changing spectacle of palaces, churches and bridges. The Rialto Market is one of the finest fish and vegetable markets in Italy. The Peggy Guggenheim Collection is outstanding. The islands of Murano with its glass workshops, Burano with its brightly coloured fishermen's houses and Torcello with its extraordinary Byzantine cathedral provide beautiful extensions of the Venetian experience.