High water? One day, in St Marks Square, so we we put off St Marks for a day, and did something else. Mind, all you need is a couple of bin-bags and a bit of string...

For places to stay I recommend you use this site - www.venere.com - for Venice and for cities all over Europe. The beauty of it is that, as well as alllowing you to check whether places are available for particular days, and what they cost, and book them online, you can check up on what previous guests have thought of them, including highly critical comments sometimes.

That's how we found ours - the ones suggested by Mudcatters all turned out to be uanvailable for the days we needed - The Campiano San Giustina turned out to be great, and we'd happily recommend it to anyone (and tell Franco and Silena, who own it, that we said so).

But it's horses for courses - for example we came across one place where someone had written about somewhere else, saying it was wonderful, so long as you didn't mind bedbugs. So check out the comments, and decide if it sounds as if the people writing them have the same priorities as you do. The comments make fascinating reading anyway.

And the other tip for anyone going to Venice is to book a Venice Card. You can pay online, and pick them up when you arrive (otherwise you'd have to wait 48 hours of you tried to buy them on the spot - the Italians seem very bureaucratic that way). These give you the freedom of the vaporettos, all over Venice and out to the islands, and free admission to the main museums. (And to the loos as well, which can be very handy; and a;so it includes various other concessions and discounts.