Born from a centuries-old meeting of cultures, Venice’s dream-like atmosphere is spellbinding. Kitted out with crumbling palaces, criss-crossing bridges and stripe-shirted gondoliers, its maze of canals is strikingly cinematic. But there’s much more to this lagoon city than its iconic waterways and Rococo sights: get lost in hidden alleyways, feast on seafood-flecked cicchetti and stay in romantic palazzos cleverly transformed into bijou boutique hotels.