Maurizia and her husband made us feel extremely welcome, told us a fair few local things to go and see and even met us at the San Basilio vaporetto stop to show us the way.

The Dorsoduro area is very beautiful, relatively quiet and has some of the nicer shops but is only a 15 minute walk to San Marco Square (or you can cheat and get a vaporetto but getting lost is part of the fun!). The second best restaurant - as voted by Trip Advisor - is a short walk away, but we ended up in Rosa Rossa because we wanted something more relaxed. It's also easy to get a vaporetto to the island of Murano and neighbouring islands for glass souvenirs and exploring.

The home itself is small, cosy, equipped with tea, coffee and cake, and decorated how I would imagine a Venetian home to be. It looks much better in real life than the pictures and the building it's in is roughly three times as old as America so there's plenty of history.

A lack of WiFi may be a problem for some, but I personally found it was bliss as I wasn't there to look at Facebook. Besides, there's a cafe very nearby that offers free WiFi if you really need it.

Our hosts went as far to buy my girlfriend a birthday present, which was way beyond the call of duty. A truly excellent place to stay for any trip to Venice!