If you love Carlo Scarpa or Olivetti typewriters then this will be your thing. A small space in Piazza San Marco (Venice) was transformed by Carlo Scarpa between 1956 - 1959 for Olivetti as their showroom. For some reason in the late 90s Olivetti moved out and a novelty shop moved in! Luckily, last year [...]

Photo by Peter Hunt
Call it The Bridge of Bulgari. Tourists stumbling around Venice, cameras at the ready to snap the Bridge of Sighs - so named for those prisoners dragged from the law courts in the Doge’s palace to a wretched, damp prison from which no one emerged alive - instead are being confronted by [...]

If someone is treating you in Venice, do suggest they take you to The Danieli, where old smoothy, Roger Moore - surely the most sauve Bond if not quite the most believable secret agent - is said to have stayed. Certainly, scenes in Live & Let Die (1973) show off the hotel’s astonishing chandeliers.

The restaurant, [...]

Photos by Peter Hunt
Lorenzo Scarpa is Venetian. You want dinner in a private palace? He’ll call a contessa. You want to keep up your exercise regime with a 7am run over bridges and along canals? He’ll have a sprinter who knows the city run by your side. Scarpa’s boutique company, AMS Servizi Turistici, can arrange [...]

Photos by Peter Hunt
The bargain of Venice is the 7-day Vaporetto ticket at 50 euros - steep to start with, but terrific value if you make a point of chugging up and down the Grand Canal to all the museums (although it would take months to visit them all) and going to as many of [...]

After reading Peggy Guggenheim’s autobiography I was determined to visit her Palazzo turned art gallery the next time I went to Italy. And it didn’t disappoint - her collection was diverse and set in what was her very elegant residence in Venice. It is not often that you can get this close to [...]