Venice

This Month in Venice:

Shopping: Gilberto Penzo is on a mission to preserve the magnificent Venetian boat-building culture. As well as restoring historic vessels, he makes reproductions and perfect scale models. Visit him at his shop where you can also buy DIY mini-gondola kits (2681 Calle Seconda dei Saoneri, San Polo, tel: 041 5246139, veniceboats.com).

Sightseeing: Each year on Ascension Day, Venice celebrates its special relationship with the sea in a ceremony during which the mayor throws a ring into the water between St Mark's and Lido island. There's also a regatta pageant, rowing races and colourful market stalls by the church of San Nicolà on Lido (Festa della Sensa, 20 May 2012).

Key areas: Although the famous Biennale Art Festival is next held in 2013, it's worth strolling as far as the Biennale Gardens to explore this attractive, less-frequented part of the city. See the curious structures of the various national pavilions used during the event.

Day trips: Take the train to Treviso (30 minutes) and explore the pretty centre with its historic buildings and winding canals. While here enjoy a glass of sparkling locally-made prosecco and try a risotto with the area's famous red salad leaves - radicchio trevigiano.

Venice News & Gossip

The Venice Lido Reborn

VENICE

All is well on the Lido once more. The legendary Tony Micelotta makes the best martinis in Europe at the Excelsior's Blue Bar. The sunsets admired by Byron and Shelley are undimmed. Every evening the sky blazes crimson and the lagoon is flecked with green, pink and gold. Italian families are back, hiring cabins on the beaches - or sunloungers with candy-striped ombrellone at the Blue Moon complex. Prosecco, seafood and ice cream sell well at bars like La Rotonda.

You may not think of Venice as a seaside destination, but after a multi-million pound facelift, which was completed this month, the dolce vita is back on the city's once-famed beach. The Lido has had a tough time lately. Historically important as the sea boundary of Venice, it found new life in the 19th century as a place of striking natural beauty, praised by writers including Byron and Ruskin. In the 20th century, the entrepreneurs Nicolò Spada and Giuseppe Volpi built the grand hotels and founded the Venice Film Festival. The Lido soon outshone the French Riviera, with Winston Churchill, Marlene Dietrich and Coco Chanel among the glittering guests at the Excelsior and the Hotel des Bains. Sadly, the post-war years saw a steady decline. Investors decamped and even Luchino Visconti's film of the Thomas Mann novel Death in Venice could not save the Lido.

In 2009, EstCapital, a real estate fund, announced a widely publicised €113m lifeline. "In a few years, we will completely change the face of the Lido," said Gianfranco Mossetto of Est."The fog that obscures it now will lift." The big idea - to revive old glories for the modern age - seems to be working. The spring-cleaned beaches now fly the coveted Blue Flag and you'll find the free public beaches at both the southern and northern tips of the Lido. The north, in particular, is pleasingly lively, with dancing at Aurora Beach and Blue Moon. And if you head further north still, towards San Nicolò, the shoreline becomes wilder and even more romantic in the warm Adriatic dusk. Alberoni, at the southern tip of the Lido, is a conservation area, with rare plants, birds and the pine forest where Byron loved to ride. Lounging in the sun, dining and dancing, an energetic timetable of tennis, riding, sailing, canoeing or golf - it's all here, just as it was in the 1930s, and only minutes from the world's most beguiling city.

Venice Trivia

• May: While in Venice, you're bound to see numerous café tables laden with interesting-looking bright orange drinks. If you're curious to try the city's favourite cocktail, order a spritz. It's made with light and fruity Aperol, prosecco and soda (aperolspritz.it).

• April: Struggling up and down them with heavy suitcases may not be much fun, but Venice's many bridges are certainly picturesque. Altogether there are 417, about a sixth of which are private. The most recent bridge is Calatrava near the railway station. Delays in construction plus design flaws which made it originally unsuitable for wheelchairs and trolleys have made the bridge a controversial talking point among Venetians.

• March: Alilaguna goes green! You'll have to look out for the transport company's new Energia boats cruising down the Grand Canal from the airport to Rialto - they're now equipped with electric engines, so you won't be able to hear them.

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