1. Venice will survive everything

There is a character in John Berendt's book, City of Falling Angels, who bemoans the fact that so many well-meaning visitors - particularly Americans - come to Venice and want to 'save it', because it is sinking, it is doomed, it will be washed into the Adriatic if they don't act now and fix its problems. "Why don't they go and save Paris, instead?" he says.

Venice has always been sinking. It started sinking faster during the 20th century when artesian wells around the lagoon pumped water out for local industries, but that has stopped and the rate of sinking has slowed again.

Several layers of city down into the mud of the lagoon, during the excavation of the foundations of the new Malibran Theatre, diggers recently unearthed the 13th Century remains of the house that once belonged to Marco Polo.

Venice has been where it is, looking a lot like it does today, for many times longer than the United States has even been in existence. It will still be where it is today, long after most of the countries in the world today have ceased to exist.

Does it have physical, climatic, structural, financial, social, organizational problems? Of course.

Can they be fixed? Some of them. Maybe. Eventually.

What can you do in the meantime? You can love her for what she is - one of the oldest, the most interesting, and definitely the most stunningly beautiful city on earth.

Love Venice.