The Venice Biennale. Where the car stops and the boat begins.

Everyone knows this and almost everyone underestimates what it means for an itinerary. The road into Venice ends at Piazzale Roma, a bus and taxi terminus at the north western corner of the historic centre, next to the multi storey garages on Tronchetto. Beyond that point every metre of your journey is on foot or on water. There is no drop off at the Giardini, no kerb outside the Arsenale, and no way to move luggage except by boat or by hand over stepped bridges.

So the question we ask first is not which car, but where you want to be put down. If you are staying on the Grand Canal or near San Marco, the cleanest arrival is a private water taxi from the airport's own dock straight to your hotel's water gate, and no road car at all. If you are driving in from Milan, the Dolomites or Lake Garda, the car takes you to Piazzale Roma and a boat meets you there. If you are arriving by private jet and going straight to the Arsenale, the water taxi can carry you the whole way.

Venice sits at the end of a causeway from Mestre on the mainland. Outside London and Manchester our cars are arranged through operators we know, and in the Veneto that means drivers who work the Mestre and Piazzale Roma approaches every week and know which of the three garages has space during Biennale weekends.

The professional preview days at the start of May are when the art world arrives at once. Hotels on the water sell out many months ahead, water taxis are spoken for by breakfast, and the docks at San Marco and the Arsenale queue in both directions. If you are coming for the opening rather than for a quiet September afternoon, the boat matters more than the car and it needs to be held from the start of the day, not called for when you want it.

During the run of the exhibition the pressure eases. Autumn is the pleasant time to go: the Giardini are walkable, the pavilions are calm and a boat can be arranged at shorter notice. The exhibition closes for the winter and reopens in May with the next discipline, art and architecture alternating year by year.

One practical note on the two main sites. The Giardini holds the historic national pavilions in a park; the Arsenale is a former shipyard with a long linear route through the Corderie. Seeing both properly is a full day on foot. Clients who are pressed for time usually do one site and a handful of pavilions in the city, and keep the boat for the crossings in between.