Heading west from the Piazza, on the most direct road to the Accademia, you soon pass on the left the Calle del Ridotto , titled after the most notorious of Venice’s gambling dens, which operated from 1638 to 1774 in the Palazzo Dandolo (no. 1332). Gamblers of all social classes were welcome at the Ridotto’s tables - as long as they wore masks - but most of the clients came from the nobility. The consequent alteration to the financial resources of the Venetian upper class became so great that the government was finally forced to close the joint. There was, though, no shortage of alternative houses in which to squander the family fortune - in 1797 some 136 gambling establishments were operating in the city. The modern visitor to Venice can experience the frisson of self-induced bankruptcy by nipping into Harry’s Bar , right by the San Marco Vallaresso landing stage in nearby Calle Vallaresso, and ordering a Bellini (prosecco and fruit juice) and one of Harry’s unreal sandwiches. Hemingway did some celebrated boozing here, but only the wealthiest of inebriates should contemplate emulating him.