The quirky one
CASA DE USCOLI
Hotels are all very well, but how about an apartment, so you can pretend
you’re a local? The Venetian pied-à-terre of a Spanish lawyer and art
collector, this airy B&B has three rooms for rent, accessed via a dingy
corridor, a beaten-up door and a shabby staircase. Even if you don’t meet
Alejandro Suarez Diaz de Bethencourt, you’ll feel you know him from his
eclectic music collection, his scattered books and his avant-garde taste in
furnishings (that bright green thing is a chair). It’s worth splashing out
£210 per night on the biggest room, with three windows onto the Grand Canal:
you’d pay three times that if it was in one of the five-stars up the canal.
The other rooms don’t have the view, but are spacious and clean, and the
communal areas include a piano room with a Grand Canal balcony. It’s just a
few minutes from the Accademia bridge, so you can hop over to Dorsoduro if
supertouristy San Marco gets too much.
Rooms from £165, B&B; 00 39 041 241 0669, www.casadeuscoli.com
The plush one
BAUER IL PALAZZO
Venice is hardly short of world-class five-star hotels, but this little-known
250-year-old palazzo gets our vote because of its perfect combination of
size (44 rooms, 38 suites) and location (right on the Grand Canal, one
minute from a bellini at Harry’s Bar). Recently restored, it is outrageously
opulent: each room is individually decorated, with silk brocades, glittering
Murano-glass chandeliers and acres of Italian marble. If you really want to
push the gondola out, take the Grand Canal Suite 108, which has unbeatable
views across the water to the Salute basilica — it’s probably the best hotel
room in the world, with prices to match. Whichever room you’re in, you can
lounge in the highest rooftop hot tub in town and take breakfast on the
seventh-floor terrace.
Doubles from £420, Grand Canal Suite 108 £1,256; breakfast £28pp; 00 39 041
520 7022, www.ilpalazzovenezia.com
The trendy one
DD.724
In a city that specialises in old-fashioned frills, here’s an island of modern
minimalism. DD stands for Dorsoduro, a district that’s a bridge south of San
Marco and so a shade more relaxed and less touristy. The number, 724, means
you’re a gondolier’s punt away from the world-renowned Penny Guggenheim
Collection. Despite the great location, it has no Grand Canal views to speak
of, but the seven rooms, with their flatscreen TVs, bright decor and stylish
sculptures, make a great refuge from all that watery ostentation.
Continental breakfast is served in the rather canteen-like communal area.
The best room by far is Junior Suite B, on a corner overlooking the pretty
Rio Toreselle canal. Have they chucked the baby out with the canal water?
You decide. Doubles from £140, B&B, junior suites from £220; 00
39 041 277 0262, www.dd724.it
The cheap one
PENSIONE LA CALCINA
Nothing in Venice is cheap, but this place offers pretty good value for money.
Set on the Zattere waterfront, on the quieter side of Dorsoduro, with
cooling views of the Giudecca canal, La Calcina is 15 minutes from St Mark’s
Square and refreshingly removed from the main tourist drag. The hotel has 29
rooms, all with parquet floors and simple, classic Italian furnishings. Room
32 (£115) is a corner room with especially breathtaking views — not quite
budget, but well worth the extra. Breakfast is served on the delightfully
tranquil waterfront terrace. If La Calcina is full, try the cheaper Pensione
Seguso, next door, where rooms are clean, basic and postwar spartan.
Pensione La Calcina: doubles from £77, B&B; 00 39 041 520 6466,
www. lacalcina.com. Pensione Seguso: doubles from £50, B&B; 00 39
041 528 6858, www.pensioneseguso.it
; closed from December to March
The famous one
HOTEL DANIELI
Of all the hotel lobbies in all the world, the Danieli’s has to be the most
mind-boggling, decorated with medieval frescoes, marble, gold and works of
art brought back from Constantinople by Doge Enrico Dandolo. Not much has
changed since the days when visiting 15th-century princes would have been
wooed here; latterday guests include Dickens, Wagner and ... Harrison Ford.
Right on the Grand Canal, the hotel is a minute’s walk from St Mark’s
Square. Early last century, the Danieli expanded into an adjacent palazzo;
then, in 1948, a third extension was built. Rooms there might be bigger, but
you’re here for the history, so ask to stay in the oldest part of the hotel.
Or, if the price makes you balk, at least have afternoon tea to drink in the
atmosphere.
Doubles from £523; breakfast £35pp, afternoon tea £20; 00 39 041 522 6480, www.luxurycollection.com/danieli
I want to go
Getting there:fly to Venice Marco Polo with BMI (0870 607 0555, www.flybmi.com
), from Heathrow; British Airways (0870 850 9850, www.ba.com
), from Gatwick; EasyJet (www.easyjet.com
), from Bristol, Gatwick or East Midlands; or Aer Lingus (0818 365000, www.aerlingus.com
), from Dublin. Or fly to Treviso, 19 miles north of Venice, which is served
by Ryanair(0871 246 0000,
Alternatively, blow the budget and take the Orient-Express. A one-way, two-day
fare starts at £1,430, all-inclusive (0845 077 2222, www.orient-express.com
).
I thought the article was about rooms offering better value than something you could get out of a guide book.
Myself, located one via the Internet, a good-sized family room for four with bathroom, 5 minutes away from San Marcos plaza, in another plaza where there were locals shopping for their meat in a butchers and their mortadella in the local charcuteria.
All for a 102 euros, incl of VAT and breakfast: more than decent coffee and assorted rolls, and more std juices.
Fine old building.
And this was right in the middle of August.
So do look
marina b., almeria,
I just stayed at the Danieli and it is far overpriced and trading on it's storied reputation. The rooms are dirty, small and poorly furnished (and we looked at three rooms, and all were equally bad). And the staff seems oblivious to their shortcomings. Stay elsewhere!!!
Steve, Washington, DC