THERE is really only one way to arrive in style in Venice, that loveliest, most serene and, yes, sexiest of cities: by splashing out on a water taxi.

At Marco Polo Airport – named after the 14th Century explorer who opened up the Silk Road to the Far East, upon which Venice’s wealth was built – you quietly circumnavigate the queues waiting to buy tickets for the vaporetto (water bus) and walk the 100 metres or so to the edge of the lagoon. There, an old-world porter loads your luggage aboard a graceful-looking motoscafo (motor launch), complete with elegant little saloon and arm chairs, and off you speed into a watery world, that to my mind represents the very pinnacle of European civilisation – one indeed that needs revisiting every few years just to check that such man-made beauty still exists.

Ideally too, if you are seriously living the rich life for a few days, you will have told that old-world porter that your destination is the Hotel Danieli.

Then, standing at the stern of the boat with binoculars and camera to hand and the wind in your hair, you whizz past the eerie island cemetery of San Michele (some Venetians drive boats like some Romans drive cars) reminding you inevitably of Visconti’s film Death in Venice – until, all of a sudden, you find yourself staring at a sort of three dimensional canvas.

The city rises from the mist looking so exactly like one of those familiar pictures – a Canaletto perhaps, or a greetings cards in your local WHSmiths – with the tower of St Mark dominating the scene and the impossibly over-decorated church of Santa Maria della Salute marking the entrance to the Grand Canal.

John Ruskin, that arbiter of Victorian taste who twice became Professor of Fine Art at Oxford University, arrived at the water entrance of the Danieli in a similar sort of way in 1849, when he and his lovely young wife Effie stayed there. Though of course in those days there were no motorboats. He wrote of how he first became obsessed with Venice: “The beginning of everything was in seeing the Gondola-beak come actually inside the door of the Danieli, when the tide was up, and the water two feet deep at the foot of the stairs.”

The Danieli must be one of a handful of the world’s best hotels – the Savoy in London being another – that sort of float above the rest, so fabulous is its reputation.

French writer Marcel Proust, one of many literary and historical figures to have stayed there (I might mention Wagner; I might mention Dickens) wrote of it: “When I went to Venice I found that my dream had become, incredibly but quite simply, my address.” It is a Renaissance Palace originally known as the Palazzo Dandolo, which was converted into a hotel in 1822 by a Swiss man called Daniel dal Niel.

Ruskin stayed at the hotel to research his monumental book, The Stones of Venice, in which he expounded the idea that Gothic architecture, with its dreamy almost Disney-esque arches, was somehow morally superior to the cool symmetry of the Classical style.

It must have been disconcerting for him therefore, when the shutters were thrown open in the best room (number 32) to see framed in the Gothic window aperture, the church of San Giorgio Maggiore, designed by Andrea Palladio in 1565, with lines as coolly symmetrical as those of a tennis court.

Such things as the “battle of the styles” mattered to Ruskin, as indeed they did to many Victorians, to an extent unimaginable today; and his influence was huge. For instance in Oxford the University Museum – with the building of which Ruskin was closely involved – has a Venetian Gothic flavour; and the church of St Barnabas in Jericho is loosely modelled on the Byzantine church of Torcello, a Venetian island.

How fashions change. Ruskin wrote of San Giorgio Maggiore: “It is impossible to conceive of a design more gross, more barbarous, more childish in conception.”

But sitting on my balcony at the Danieli, glass of bubbly before me, a book about Palladio on my lap, and admiring the same view of San Giorgio as he had scorned, I confess I thought: “Silly old fool.”

It is precisely this mixture of styles, dating back nearly 1,000 years, that makes Venice so sexy: you become almost drunk with the beauty of it – even though there is less “romantic decay” around now than 10 years ago when I was last here. Much of it is at last being repaired; even the Bridge of Sighs, is hidden behind scaffolding.

True, St Mark’s Square is so crowded with tourists that it is hard to move, particularly after an Acqua Alta (High Water or flood), but it is still easy to wander off down an oh-so-romantic alleyway and find yourself completely alone and surrounded by architecture that is unchanged from scenes depicted in 15th century pictures displayed in the Accademia gallery.

So much that is familiar in England, and perhaps particularly in a lovely university city like Oxford, is here as a result of Palladio. His Quattro Libri (Four Books) were translated by England’s first classical architect, Inigo Jones, and the books were responsible for introducing the classical style here (the Ashmolean for instance would probably not be the shape it now is were it not for Palladio).

Sitting in Florian’s cafe in St Mark’s Square, my wife and I discussed other Oxford/Venice associations – for instance the cups of coffee in front of us. The first coffee was sold in England in Oxford. But the first coffee in Europe was served in Venice even before that.

Then of course there is Oxford’s so-called Bridge of Sighs which, actually, is modelled on the Rialto Bridge – not the Bridge of Sighs at all.

After that, with watertaxi fares to the airport costing almost as much as Easyjet fares, the millionaire lifestyle had to end. We humped our bags onto a waterbus, on our way to catch a dreary old land bus.

GETTING THERE

You can fly, return, with EasyJet from London Gatwick to Venice Marco Polo for £130 approx.

The Marco Polo airport is 12km from Venice by land and 10km by sea.

You can get to Venice by coach, taxi or by boat.

From Treviso airport there is a half-hour train journey that leaves every half an hour.

Other ways include taxi or hiring a car.

STAYING THERE

Chris stayed at Hotel Danieli, Castello 4196, Venice 30122, Italy Phone: (39)(041) 522 6480 venice-hotel-danieli.com Prices range from 270 Euros per room (a Double Deluxe in this case) per night to 1,800 Euros.

Hotel Danieli occupies one of the most envied locations in Venice – next to Palazzo Ducale and its ancient dungeons connected by the famous Bridge of Sighs, and a short walk to the centre of Saint Mark’s Square where shopping, museums, and outdoor cafe’s await.

DON'T MISS

  • Piazza San Marco – with the Basilica, Clocktower and the Doge’s Palace
  • La Fenice Opera House
  • Gallerie dell’Accademia
  • I Frari
  • Scuola Grande di San Rocco
  • Scuola di San Giorgio degli Schiavoni
  • A vaporetto tour up and down the Canal Grande – Ponte di Rialto e Ponte dei Sospiri.

WHAT TO EAT

Lunch or dinner in one of the trattorias is one of the pleasures of Venetian life.

High up the list of things to try are the fish and seafood (in particular the squid, cuttlefish, eels and mussels), as well as fegato alla veneziana (calf’s liver fried with onions).

There are some excellent local wines to accompany these dishes including Valpolicella, Bardolino and Amarone (red) along with Soave and Prosecco (white).

TOP TIPS

Take binoculars as some of Venice’s best sights are on ceilings or at the top of columns.

Don’t wear sleeveless tops, or short skirts, as you won’t be able to enter the city’s many churches.