Mara and her sister Fer are the most caring hosts you could wish for. Fer picked us up from the airport and gave us tickets to be able to travel into Venice on the first day. There was also a bowl of fruit and bottle of wine left to welcome us.

In terms of the accommodation: the 'flat' is very small, but perfectly adequate for the two of us. Be warned that it can be extremely cold and wet in Venice; when we arrived at the end of March, it was even snowing! Thankfully, the flat is very well heated and therefore it was easy to dry our shoes and jeans and felt really cosy to home to in the evenings. The bus stop is just round the corner and the 12 & 12/ run about every 20 minutes. Be certain, however, to buy your tickets at the tobacconist's before getting on the bus and be aware that he closes for a few hours in the middle of the day. The best solution seems to be to buy a card and load it with 10 journeys. At the weekend, you will need to walk to St Columb to take the 4. My daughter did an Italian course in the mornings and was able to arrive easily by 9 am.

I think that in the summer, this would be a particularly nice place to stay as it has its own little garden. We were unable to take advantage of this due to the unseasonable cold weather.

I would thoroughly recommend Mara's and Fer's 'Little Home' and really hope to meet them again.