The boyfriend had chosen a luxurious hotel called Dei Dogi, a former palazzo in the Cannaregio Sestieri residential area. At that point, I could have slept in an abandoned gondola, so I crawled into the ornately carved bed while he went out foraging for really important stuff, such as wine and underwear.

When he woke me up bearing a demurely sexy white lace bra (in the right size) and a new pair of undies (ditto), as well as bread, a wedge of brie, and a bottle of Chianti—"They sell it right out of giant casks!"—that he found on San Leonardo, it struck me that this one might be a keeper.

The next day, after only three or so hours on the phone trying to find our bags and bump back our departure date to make up for the time we'd lost visiting Newfoundland, we set out to explore the city.

I had learned that the ornate, brilliantly colored chandeliers in the Dogi’s lobby were made on the nearby island of Murano, and decided we had to visit. It's definitely worth a trip. After a demonstration of the centuries-old art of glassblowing, you view More Glass Objects Than You've Ever Laid Eyes On. Yes, it's all designed to make you buy some insanely expensive thingamajig to take home, but the candy-colored glass is so beautiful you don't mind.

I discovered a grove of lamps shaped like bunches of grapes. I've wanted to possess such an item for nearly 15 years—don't ask me why—so I was thrilled and touched when the boyfriend announced I should pick my favorite for my birthday/Christmas/ Valentine’s/Arbor Day gift. Suddenly, the absence of my luggage didn’t seem so tragic.

Still, a girl can't live on handblown glass grapes alone. A trip to one of Venice's ornate houses of worship for a little spiritual sustenance was the next order of business. Basilica di San Marco may get most of the attention, but a local tipped us off to Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari in San Polo. Its carved marble skeletons, pyramids, and saints are so exquisitely over-the-top that I couldn't bear to dilute their memory with a glimpse at another church until we got to the Vatican.

Next, we needed an art fix. Venice is filled with museums devoted to Byzantine, Renaissance, and Baroque masterworks, but I had just finished reading Art Lover, a biography of Peggy Guggenheim, who amassed an enviable collection of 20th-century art (and more than a few artist lovers) and spent her waning years in the Palazzo Venier dei Leoni on the Grand Canal. So I took the boyfriend to the palazzo, now a light-filled museum, to see surrealist and cubist works by Max Ernst, Piet Mondrian, Marcel Duchamp, and Guggenheim discovery Jackson Pollock.