Venice stands, as she loves to tell you, on the frontiers of the east and west, half-way between the setting and the rising sun. Goethe calls her "the market-place of the Morning and the Evening lands". Certainly no city on earth gives a more immediate impression of symmetry and unity, or seems more patently born to greatness.

So Jan Morris remarks, with graceful literary distinction, on the qualities that have made Venice a unique place among the world's great destinations. She has known it intimately for over six decades. She knows its history, its carvings, its idiosyncrasies, its weather, and all the Doges of the past. She returns even now, never tiring of this "dappled city, tremulous and flickering". She first wrote Venice in praise of it 50 years ago and has revised the book three times. To open this premiere audiobook recording, Jan Morris reads a personal introduction which perfectly distils a lifetime's fascination with La Serenissima.