I was pleased to discover that I still had my original copy of Hugh Honour’s Companion Guide to Venice in my travel cupboard, not the first edition of 1965, but the second edition of 1967, which still has a dutiful copperplate inscription in it that it was given to me by my Aunt Margaret in 1967, presumably for Christmas.   This confirms what I had always slightly doubted that my first visit to Venice was in Easter 1968 when I was allowed to stay a couple of nights on my own in a hotel behind the Accademia and explored the city – the Carpaccios in S. Giorgio degli Schiavoni, the Colleoni monument, the Accademia itself – with the Companion Guide in hand.