VAPORETTO1,VENICE

I challenge you to think of a more staggeringly beautiful high street than the Grand Canal in Venice. Thought not. That great, sweeping waterway, lined with palazzo after incredible palazzo, is still the same as when Canaletto couldn’t stop painting it back in the 1730s. No Starbucks or Pret or Golden Arches — just pure, unadulterated baroque extravagance. And, of course, no cars or buses.

You have three options for getting up and down it: gondola, private water taxi or vaporetto. The first is embarrassing, even if you pay them extra not to sing. The second is hysterically extortionate. Which leaves us with the third: the big, but surprisingly nifty and highly affordable, vaporetto. Unless you’re a Japanese tourist or Jan Morris, it’s not a hard choice.

THE START

Where else but Piazza San Marco? Admire the pigeons, the tourists and the astronomical cappuccino prices, then head to the water’s edge. If it’s sunny, begin your journey by taking vaporetto No 1 from the Vallaresso stop in the wrong direction, out to the Lido. Compared with Venice proper, it’s just an average Italian suburb with cars and supermarkets, but the ride out is beautiful, and the cafes along the waterfront do a perfectly decent espresso while you wait for the next boat back. And because you’re starting at the start, you can grab a good seat.

If it isn’t sunny, begin your journey with a drink. It might be only 11am, but you’re on holiday, and you’re in the most romantic city in the world. And the city’s sinking. So it may well not be here next time you come. That’s a good enough reason for a drink at 11am, isn’t it? The place to go is Harry’s Bar (Calle Vallaresso, San Marco 1323; www.cipriani.com), conveniently situated next to the vaporetto stop.

Considering that it is one of the most famous bars in the world, birthplace of the bellini and second home of Hemingway, you wouldn’t expect it to look like a rather downbeat railway waiting room, but it does. No matter, the aperitivi are worth the trip to Venice on their own. If you can still feel your legs, step outside, buy a vaporetto ticket from the nice ticket-booth lady and jump on the first No 1 you can focus on.

STOP ONE: Salute I know you’ve just got on, but you have to get straight off again at Salute, just on the other side of the canal (but a long walk round via Accademia). After the bedlam that is St Mark’s, it’s a relief to explore the super-baroque Santa Maria della Salute in relative p&q. From there, it’s a short walk to the world-famous Peggy Guggenheim Collection (£6.80; closed Tuesdays). Ms Guggenheim racked up surrealist and modernist masterpieces at the same rate as she racked up notches on her bedpost. Samuel Beckett, Grand Canal Roland Penrose and Yves Tanguy were bedded. Picassos, Duchamps and Magrittes wereFerrovia Vallaresso bought. Max Ernst was both.

PostPeggy, continue Mocenigo walking in the same direction until you reach the Accademia vaporetto stop, just beyond the bridge. For the next 20 minutes, the boat takes you della Salute through the most beautiful section of the Grand Canal. Look out, in particular, for the four Palazzi Mocenigo on the right-hand side, marked out by blue-and-white gondola mooring poles. The middle two made up the home of Lord Byron, where he boasted of having a different woman on 200 consecutive evenings. If only he and Guggenheim had met.

STOP TWO: Rialto

Obvious, this one, but it’s high time for lunch. The stop is on the San Marco side: walk across the Rialto Bridge (the view really is as unblemished as it was in Canaletto’s day, even if the pickpockets are more persistent) and turn left, resisting the hard-sell canalside trattorias. Turn right into the second alleyway, walk 30 yards, and on your left should be Trattoria alla Madonna, a refreshingly down-to-earth canteen that does pasta, salads and seafood at half the price and twice the quality of the super-touristy ones you’ve just battled through. Then go back across the bridge to pick up the vaporetto for the final leg of the journey.

THE FINISH

Ferrovia is the station stop. From here, you could catch the boat all the way back, but now you’ve got your bearings, it’s more fun to walk. Which way? Just follow as straight a line as possible without getting wet. It should take an hour.

Details: a single ticket, valid for two hours of hopping on and off, costs £4. Stamp it when you get on the first boat (unless you’re heading out to the Lido for your start — they won’t mind you stamping it once you start heading back). The journey from San Marco to the station takes about 50 minutes nonstop, but you’ll easily break the two-hour barrier if you stop for galleries and lunch. Your best bet, then, is a Venicecard Blu: one day costs £12 (£10.80 for those under 30) and allows unlimited access to public transport. It must be booked in advance at www.venicecard.it.

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