WINTER IN VENICE

From 2010

This winter we thought we'd go to Venice by train, for the adventure. Having become averse to travelling, the Kureishi family had taken its previous holiday in Watford and we were home in twenty minutes; indeed we could have commuted. Not only that on checking into the Watford hotel we discovered Ashley Cole, Frank Lampard and John Terry playing Scrabble in a side-room. The England captain charmed our ten-year-old son, asking him his name before giving him his autograph. The kid was smart enough not to let on that we were Manchester United supporters.

This time, after taking the Eurostar to Paris and the Metro to the Gare Bercy, we joined the night train. I took two sleeping pills and, wearing all my clothes, slipped under the thin blanket on the bunk bed, thinking how lovely it was to lie there watching the landscape and the lights speeding by. An hour later I woke up to find the train had stopped in a station and a crowd of French clubbers were staring into our cabin.

Every time I peered down at my partner in her bunk, her eyes were open and she was staring at the ceiling. The restaurant car had been splendid, but we did wonder at the level of hygiene in the tiny cabin; it was not unlike sleeping in a public toilet with a great view of the Alps. Indeed, if you did happen to peer into the train toilet, you could see the ground below.

But we did wake up in Venice, the train almost tipping us into the Grand Canal. I'd never been here in the winter, and it was a different beauty, stark and fresh. The sun was bright and near the Rialto, not far from one of my favourite shops, the Beatles' Memorabilia emporium, people were eating outside wearing sunglasses.

Luckily there was no sign of the worst flooding Venice had endured since ip66. Having watched the TV news in early December and seen a man canoeing across St Mark's Square and The rest of the population wading up to their gussets in sewage during a transport strike, I'd had to say to the Missus: that's where we will be spending the New Year.

The hotel we were put in, the Palazzo Barbarigo, was dark in the modern style - the modern style of the 1980s, resembling a smart Philippe Starck New York hotel, where everything straight was curved and you needed a torch to find your way around, even when the lights were on. But the floors were great for a ten-year-old Duracell-battery boy to skid across in his socks, and he could duck down behind the huge sofas when the need for discretion arose. As I have a theory that you can eat almost anywhere in France or Italy and the food will be fine, that first lunch-time we picked a place at random. (Never try this in London.)