My usual journey to the Heathrow Garden Hilton to stay overnight and awaken fresh and at the airport was made much more difficult this time by a tube strike. My usual route involving two line-changes is enough of a faff, but having to catch an overground train from Balham to Victoria, then a bus to Paddington, which stopped short at Marble Arch, necessitating a walk up the Edgware Road, along the way being propositioned at least twice by cafe staff, in Arabic, before finally reaching Paddington, and realising that the ticket I'd just bought on my phone was for a trip in the wrong direction, so I had to buy another one, and arriving at Terminal 3 finding there was a real bus, not just a Hoppa, so I could use my Freedom Pass, to Hatton Cross tube station, which would've been my destination under normal circumstances, was a whole nother realm of faff. I left home at 6.00 and checked in just after 9.00. which wasn't that bad. I won't complain about the usual faff ever again. Perhaps.

Wednesday 10th
The Hoppa bus at a civilised time got me to terminal 5 zone G comfortably for a 9:30 meet and check in, with no delay getting through security and meeting David and Jenny and making for Giraffe where, having had nothing since yesterday's lunch, I had the full veggie breakfast. Sometime during all this we met with Marie-Louise and Faye and the other three, who I'd been on many trips with of late. Regular readers won't be surprised to learn that this was a trip run by Fine and Cultural tours, previously better named Art Pursuits.

At Venice airport we were met by Patrizia, a tour manager on many a favourite trip, to help us to the water-taxi for a bumpy ride to our hotel's water gate, the Duodo Palace, right by the Fenice. My room was small, of course, but being canal-facing and on the fourth floor, with two windows, was bright with an excellent view (see right).

After settling in, we set about some welcoming prosecco and set out on an intro-walk to Piazza San Marco and on to our first group meal at the Corte Sconta Restaurant, which provided three courses of the best, most imaginary, veggie food I've had in Italy. The starter was celeriac carpaccio, with orange segments and a coriander vinaigrette, the main was tofu with vegetable demi-glace, sweet potato cream and asparagus sautéed in brandy, and the dessert was blue goats cheese, crystallized fruit, white crumble, wild berries coulis and raspberry pearls. Later in the trip the food got much more expensive but it didn't get better.

Thursday 11th
A civilised 9:45 departure from our hotel, walking to the Rialto, over the bridge and around the market, with a quick visit to San Giacometto. After a coffee in Campo Santa Maria Formosa we walked to Palazzo Grimani, a bit of a treat, even for this sculpture agnostic (see right). With a very strange exhibition of the cabinet-of-curiosity type collection of George Loudon.

We were then sent to Campo San Zanipolo with our tour manager Faye to find lunch, which five of us did in Ristorazione alla Strega - I had an excellent margherita pizza with onion and a LemonSoda. We then all meet back up by the Scuola di San Marco to admire it's facade, the equestrian statue, and the façade of Santi Giovanni e Paolo, before going into the church. There we did the full Lombardo Bros Doge tombs, Bellini altarpiece, high altar and tabernacle immersion in a church delightfully empty. Then a short walk to the marble treat that is Santa Maria de Miracoli, where Marie-Louise has married her Venetian husband. And San Giovanni Crisostomo, previously one of the foremost NO PHOTO churches in Venice, but now blissfully under new management. The space around the Bellini is more cluttered, and you still can't get that close to the high altar, but it's better and the red ropes have gone. The three church-treats in a row were followed by a loiter in the Corte del Milion to admire some Byzantine-style bits and the so-called House of Marco Polo, before returning to our hotel for some well-earned.

After resting a bit I snuck out for an evening stroll, getting lost, visiting McDonald's and having my first gelato - mandarin sorbet paired with banana/cinnamon. V. Nice

Friday 12th.
I didn't do my breakfast report yesterday. The juice is not fresh, the coffee OK, a selection of croissants, but it's easy to pick up a frosted and filled one by mistake, thereby making your scoop of honeycomb surplus to needs. But the weirdest thing is that there are two entirely separate breakfast rooms.

To Piazza San Marco this morning and up the Torre dell’Orologio. A fascinating climb through mechanical marvels, the Three wooden Magi to the 'moors' (who actually have long wavy hair) and the bell, with splendid views. Not sure I would thought to book this (groups only) unprovoked but it was a worthwhile, educational treat. The exteriors of the Procuratorie Nuove, the Loggetta, and the Marciana Library by Jacopo Sansovino were then appreciated on the way to the sweet Pavillon (Palazzina Selva), near the San Marco vaporetto stop, Where coffee, or hot chocolate, was taken. This was followed by a stroll in the Giardini Reali and a walk to a nearby branch of Rosa Salva for lunch.

Then we went into the Basilica San Marco – crowded, and so not a patch on the evening group visit when the place is closed that was booked but cancelled, but always impressive. Then a short vaporetto ride up to the Giardini, a stroll through these, and on to the basilica of San Pietro di Castello the first cathedral of Venice. Here we met Patrizia and her hubby Gregory and chatted and walked back to the Porta Magna of the Arsenale, to admire the lions and quaff LemonSodas and Chinotto at a bar overlooking.

Another independent evening so me and David and Jenny went to the Ristorante Vaporetto nearby, patronised by me I nyears gone by and D&J and some of the group, last night. I had another good (bufalina with cipolla) pizza. I also, for the first time in my life, drank and quite enjoyed the complementary lemoncello.

Saturday 13th
Morning shocker - when asked if they wanted tea or coffee with their breakfast this morning an American couple asked for two Diet Cokes.

We made straight for the vaporetto to San Giorgio this morning, for a look in the church, before a guide took us around the cloisters (see below), corridors and libraries of the Cini Foundation. With a visit to the refectory and the rather good copy of Veronese’s Wedding at Cana, painted for here but stolen by Napoleon and shamefully yet to be returned by the Louvre. A service of some commemorative nature was on back in the church, so we took to the tower (in a lift for once) just in time to get our brains shaken by the 12 o'clock bells.

After coffee in the cafe around by the mourings we took the vaporetto to Palanca on Giudecca for lunch at Harry's Dolci. I had bean soup and vegetable risotto, and my first ever Bellini. They were all very expensive, like €29 for the soup. Nothing exceptional except the view.

Following a brief pop into Sant'Eufamia, just by the restaurant, a rough-walled gem inside with a fine Viverini altarpiece panel, we trotted along to the Redentore where a somewhat OTT wedding was commencing, with small potted trees hung with fairy lights down the nave (see above right) and so many photographers. We took the opportunity to explore the recently-opened gardens out the back. (€12 for a small garden?) The wedding was still going on when we left the gardens, with some of the 'friends' of the couple sitting out the service drinking cheerfully in the bar next door. Another vaporetto took us over to Santa Maria della Salute, of which I have never been fond. My opinion was not challenged – the copious fencing, wood panels, bollards and signs are still no fun. A somewhat legsore walk back to the hotel ended another full day.

In the evening, well-stuffed by lunch, I had a bath.

Sunday 14th
Our morning walk took in short appreciations of Santa Maria del Giglio and San Moise, but we were making for the Derelitti Church where (after hot chocolate in Rosa Salva nearby) we got let in to see the famous music room upstairs (see below right) but not, unfortunately, the actual church as the Architecture Biennale was on and the person staffing the Lithuanian exhibit inside didn't look like they were going to turn up. So, on to the Museo Querini Stampalia to admire the garden and the entrance, designed by Carlo Scarpa. We had a turn around the upper art gallery floor too. The shock of the trip, maybe the year, was the atrocious wooden structure that now houses the Bellini Presentation.

Lunch in the museum cafe was followed by a visit to complete our Scarpa twosome with the wild and impressive Negozio Olivetti shop in the Piazza. Then we had a good visit to San Zaccaria, to make today’s Bellini-treat twosome. The Castagna frescoes in the chapel apse are in restauro so it's full of scaffolding up the apse walls and under the roof.

Our last night dinner was at Taverna Trattoria al Remer in that good-viewpoint calle on the Canale Grande opposite the Rialto. I had herby ravioli with smoked-cheese topping and a bit of pesto, with a puff-pastry fig-jam thing with vanilla gelato for afters.

Monday 15th
After checking out and leaving our cases we visited Scala del Bovolo, which since my last visit in the 1990s has lost all its cats and you can pay to climb to climb up and visit a little museum.
Then a guided tour of the Teatro della Fenice, on which both destructions by fire were mentioned, but the Mafia were not mentioned, although the word arson was used. This was not a highlight of the tour for me, opera and gilded papier-mache not being enthusiasms of mine.

Unlike the lunch treat at the Danieli, organised to make up for the loss of our private evening visit to San Marco. The hotel building, the views and the food did not disappoint, my highlight being a desert of Lemon sorbet, raw celery, sucrine (lettuce) and extra virgin olive oil (see right) - €24.00.

Afterwards a water taxi took us to Marco Polo, where we bid huggy farewells to Patrizia. The possible delay due to possible storms in the UK didn’t transpire and we were home in pretty good time.

A week unlike my usual trips, then, but all the better for that. And regarding the eternal complaint that dining in Venice involves paying too much and not getting much, quality-wise, it seems solvable by paying far too much.