KOREAGONSTUDIO

Erotic Review owner/comedienne Kate Copstick on a city that will never break her heart

I was sitting in the gently careworn campo behind the Chiesa dell'Angelo Raffaele. The silence was teetering on the edge of total, the sun hot. It was so close to perfect I hardly dared breathe. The bell in the church tower rang, and suddenly I was in love. Heart-rushingly, knee-tremblingly and eye-wettingly in love. With Venice.

Don't spoil your visit to Venice by eating in over-priced tourist traps – follow the locals' lead and graze on bar snacks in back-street osterie

My trip to one of the world's most romantic cities was inspired by the least romantic of situations: a boys' night out in Soho, London, the kind that ends up in a random curry house before falling asleep on the night bus. On this night, however, we fell, quite by chance, into Polpo (see Jay Rayner's review), a relatively new restaurant that appeared to be some kind of tapas bar, was lively and not too pricey – yes, this would do.

Everything you need to know to navigate the City of Water

GETTING THERE

Easyjet (easyjet.com) flies from Bristol, East Midlands and Gatwick to Venice Marco Polo from £50. Ryanair (ryanair.com)flies from Bristol, East Midlands, Leeds, Liverpool and Stansted to Treviso, a 19-mile coach ride from Venice .

GETTING AROUND

A 12-hour go-as-you-please vaporetto/bus ticket costs €16 and will cover the journey from Venice to Chioggia. The bus for Venice from Chioggia, number 80, takes just over an hour and costs €4.50. For more information, visit Hellovenezia (00 39 041 2424; hellovenezia.com).

WHERE TO EAT

Trattoria L'Assaggio, Fondamenta San Domenico 1250, Chioggia. Ristorante Da Nane, Via Laguna 283, San Pietro in Volta (00 39 041 527 9110). Ristorante Da Celeste, Via Vianelli 625, Pellestrina (00 39 041 967043). Osteria al Campiello Sestiere Busetti 250, Pellestrina (00 39 041 5279534; osteriacampiello.com).

Forget the gondolas. Public ferries and buses are the best way to escape the hordes and explore La Serenissima's chain of unspoilt islands

How do Venetians escape the daily invasion of their fragile city by tens of thousands of tourists every single day of the year? This is the question I've been asked ever since I chose to come and live here, joining the dwindling population of just over 50,000 inhabitants.

We asked you to tell us about your adventures in travel over the past year. You responded in your hundreds; here is a selection of our favourites in Europe, from partying with the Saga crowd to carnival in Cadiz

With the golden oldies, Spain

By Gillian McDonald
In late summer I accompanied my 85-year-old mother on a Saga holiday. I was the only fortysomething in a plane, then coach, then dining hall full of – well – old people. "Are you sure?" friends had asked. "How will you cope with 'The youth of today don't know they are born', the early nights, the bed pans at breakfast?". "Oh I'll be fine," I'd replied. "It's a fortnight in the sun. Besides, I'll catch up on loads of reading, dry out a bit after weeks of overindulging, and get some much-needed sleep."

Back in the early 1980s Jimmy Savile fronted a series of TV ads with the tag line, "This is the age of the train". Frankly, it wasn't. At the time the railways were haemorrhaging passengers, while motorways were multiplying and accessible air travel was no longer an impossible dream. Nobody wanted slam-door rattle-bang any more. Fast forward nearly three decades and the situation has changed. Motorways are nose-to-tail and airports have lost their glamour. But trains have gone on doing their own thing. Yes, we've got wonderful new high-speed services in Europe, but there are also hill-climbing antiques, trans-continental empire builders and retro-style sleepers, still plugging away.

Tom Hall of Lonely Planet answers your questions about worldwide travel

Q: I would like to take my wife and 12-year-old daughter to Athens overland. Is this possible? If so, can we go via Venice and then by sea across the Adriatic. Or do such old-world routes no longer exist?

The great travel writer Jan Morris reveals the cities and people that have inspired her over 83 years

'And what is your favourite of them all?", people often ask me, when they learn I have spent most of my 83 years looking at cities around the world.

Dear God, what a question! To my mind cities are distillations of human life itself, in all its nuances, with all its contradictions and anomalies, changing from one year to another, changing with the weather, changing with history, changing with the state of the world, changing above all in one's own personal responses. How can I have a favourite? Sometimes I prefer one city, sometimes another. Inconstancy governs my responses to cities – fidelity in personal matters, promiscuity in civic affairs.

We asked the experts to reveal the trips they are most excited about – from Papua New Guinea's jungles to Greenland's ice floes

Asia

1. Mountain biking, Cappadocia, Turkey

In Cappadocia, the thrill of hurtling along a trail on two wheels is amplified by its otherworldly landscape of rock pillars, known as "fairy chimneys", many reaching more than 40 metres high, as well as its cave houses and ancient Byzantine churches. There are well-marked trails, both long and short, for all skill levels.

When? April to October are the best months

Book it: Argeus Tourism & Travel (00 90 384 341 4688; cappadociaexclusive.com) offers a year-round, four-day guided mountain-bike tour of Cappadocia from £583, including hotel accommodation, some meals and bike rent. Flights extra

Mary Hoffman on two views of the lagoon city that look beneath the tourist veneer

Venice: Pure City

by Peter Ackroyd 416pp, Chatto & Windus, £25

Piazza San Marco

by Iain Fenlon 224pp, Profile, £15.99

"I envy you writing about Venice," says the newcomer. "I pity you," says the old hand. That was Mary McCarthy's aperçu, writing about the lagoon city nearly 50 years ago, and the situation for every new observer can only get worse with time.

Forget water taxis and tourist rides, if you want a fresh perspective on La Serenissima, jump in a kayak and paddle up to St Mark's Square

It's rush hour and there's a traffic jam on the Grand Canal. Popping out into the canal from one of the narrower waterways is a trio of gondolas; hurtling towards them is the number-one vaporetto (water bus) loaded with its summer cargo. So far so familiar, but in the midst of this waterborne whirl of gondolas, buses, taxis, pleasure and motorboats there's me, in a kayak, with a honking, crane-bearing delivery boat up my backside.

Global warming, not day trippers, is why the city's dying

Have you been to Venice this summer? Have you seen the loathing? Have you smelt the hatred? Because, Guardian reader, it's directed at you.Venice is thinking about banning day-trippers. It may charge a flat fee for entry, or perhaps refuse admittance to people without hotel bookings. It isn't sure of the details yet; it is only sure of its disgust for us, the people who keep Venice nailed to her respirator. Every day tourists double Venice's population of 60,028 and the Venetians are up against an alley wall, staring at us with invisible shotguns. Why do they hate us? Shouldn't they love us?

• Dredging scheme puts city in peril, say campaigners
• Backers rely on biblically named flood barrier

Twenty-first century Venice would probably confound the famous figures from Byron to Henry James who have visited the watery streets in pursuit of carnal or aesthetic gratification.

From Easter Island to Venice, communities are up in arms at the environmental damage being caused by mass tourism

In the brochure or guidebook they look idyllic and fascinating. Unspoilt beaches, ancient monuments and historic cities dripping with charm. But the Wish You Were Here postcard scenes of the world's tourist sites do not show you an increasingly common sight: the band of placard-waving locals who wish you weren't.

Last week the Chilean under-secretary of the interior, Patricio Rosende, travelled more than 2,000 miles to a volcanic speck in the ocean to spend two days in heated talks with the people of Easter Island. Those who live on the island, which is part of Chile and famed for its massive ancient stone statues, believe they are facing ecological disaster because of hordes of tourists. But their complaints have fallen on deaf ears and lack support from those on the island who survive on visitor dollars.

The best ideas, from hitching a cheap ride on a gondola to chilling at the Lido

Venice can work for families, but my advice is take plenty of money, and spend it all with love and foresight. Two life-enhancing hours in a gondola or speedboat may be expensive, but when you're shelling out €80 for a 40-minute ride, remember it's only the price of a game console or a lacklustre family trip to a pizza joint in suburbia back home. But you'll be even better off remembering that children love public transport almost as much. The vaporetto (water bus) is cheap and the gondola experience costs €0.50 when you take the traghetto, the gondola ferry from a choice of points across the Grand Canal. There are seven crossings, all marked on maps, such as Sofia (near Ca'D'Oro) to Pescaria (the Rialto fish market) or Campo Del Traghetto to Calle Lanza (near the Salute church). All gondoliers take a turn working on the lowly traghetto once a year.

While other places try to reinvent the meal with foodie fads and slick decor, these classic European restaurants – chosen by our epicurean experts – have barely changed in a century or more

Half a century after I first wrote about this supreme sight of civilisation, even the gaudy, congested city of today has me smitten

Fifty years ago I published a book about Venice. It has given me the pride and pleasure of a love affair ever since – together with a modest private income – so the other day I went back to Venice to spend a couple of days celebrating its anniversary.

Vivaldi joins ranks of Sir Isaac Newton, Stravinsky and Sesame Street to have a special Google doodle celebrating his 332nd birthday
Vivaldi is so this season, says Google

The mark of having made it used to be a postage stamp, or maybe a bauble from a head of state. But the digital version is the Google Doodle, where the world's dominant search engine changes its logo in honour of one of the greats from history.

Whether you're a couple looking for romance or a night owl in search of a party, we have come up with the potted guide to the New Year's Eve of your dreams

All prices are based on a three-night trip departing on 30 December.