The Dutch writer Cees Nooteboom has been visiting Venice since 1964. It wasn’t until his tenth visit, though, that he finally took a ride on a gondola, a convenience he had always seen as “tourism, affectation, theatre, something for other people”. In his latest book to be translated into English, Venice: The Lion, the City and the Water (MacLehose Press, £20), he reports on the experience. There’s an extract from the book on the excellent Literary Hub site.