The sweet life has always attracted travelers, to Venice in the months of the famous Carnival and elsewhere at different times of the year, down the centuries.

Venice is like eating an entire box of chocolate liqueurs in one go.

The perennial wonder of Venice is to peer at herself in her canals and find that she exists-incredible as it seems. It is the same reassurance that a looking-glass offers us: the guarantee that we are real.

The rationalist mind has always had its doubts about Venice. The watery city receives a dry inspection, as though it were a myth for the credulous- poets and honeymooners.

This grossly advertised wonder [Venice], this gold idol with clay feet, this trompe-l'oeil, this painted deception, this cliche-what intelligent iconoclast could fail to experience a destructive impulse in her presence?

Venice is the worlds unconscious: a misers glittering hoard, guarded by a Beast whose eyes are made of white agate, and by a saint who is really a prince who has just slain a dragon.

Is there anyone but must repress a secret thrill, on arriving in Venice for the first time-or returning thither after long absence-and stepping into a Venetian gondola?

Looking, he thought that to come to Venice by the station is like entering a palace by the back door.