To the Wonder

In a fantastic city filled with river streets and boat cars, Venice hotels have a lot to live up to. That they exceed expectations is just one more reason to spend the night.

When we last wrote about Venice, in November 2019, its long-term outlook was dire: rising water levels, a declining population, crippling over-tourism. It wound up being one of our most controversial stories, as much for the recounting of Venice’s widely publicized problems as for the fact that the writer, yours truly, had never actually been there.

But never having been there was the whole reason it was written.

You don’t need to have seen Venice to fall in love with what it represents. When I was young, its premise grabbed hold of me immediately. The canals and waterways were unbelievable — an impossible fantasyland of river streets and boat cars. I couldn’t shake the idea. Most of us won’t be able to visit everywhere we’d like to, so the idea of a place might be all we ever have of it. But that’s what turns us into travelers. The potential of places like Venice is what inspires us to go everywhere else.

It’s been an unsettling few years for Venezia. Floods follow droughts follow floods. Almost three years to the day after we published our story, in the aftermath of one historic flood, the city was hit with another, its water levels exceeding two meters for the first time ever. But there’s hope; the floodgates designed to protect Venice from the rising sea are nearly fully operational (unintended consequences from the barriers, in the form of stagnant water, continue to be debated).

Speaking of unintended consequences, another lasting concern for Venice is over-tourism. Cruise ships carrying thousands of day trippers regularly descend upon the islands. While tourism is always good for business, these particular tourists are notable for spending relatively little money on land while putting an outsized strain on the city’s infrastructure and abilities. Yes, we’re biased, but dropping in for a half-day and departing back to the boat should be no one’s ideal way to experience any destination, let alone this one.

If you ask us, it’s better to get to know a place than to barely know a bunch of them. And to do that, you’ll need to stay a night or three. It’s hard to compete with the wonders of Venice, but the city’s best hotels are up to the challenge, as you’ll see below. Each one offering its own take on what makes Venice magic.

Have I been yet? It doesn’t matter.
 

Hotel Metropole

Venice, Italy

Even by Venetian standards, the Hotel Metropole is steeped in history — this was once an orphanage where Vivaldi gave music lessons. More recently, though still decades ago, it was acquired by the Beggiato family, and remains a family-owned and -operated hotel, decorated with the owners’ collections of art and antiques. And while it’s been renovated to keep pace with the times, its style is deliciously decadent, and eclectic.

Il Palazzo Experimental

Venice, Italy

The Experimental Group has blossomed quickly from a word-of-mouth Parisian cocktail phenomenon to a full-fledged hospitality concern. If there ever were a city whose hotel scene needed an infusion of youthful cool, it’s Venice, whose bridges and canals are so thick with tourists you could be forgiven for wondering if there’s any nightlife culture here at all. That’s where Il Palazzo Experimental comes in.

SINA Centurion Palace

Venice, Italy

Behind the postcard-perfect Venetian-Gothic exterior of this former convent is something else entirely: a thoroughly modern luxury boutique hotel. Not that you’ll think for so much as a moment that you’re anywhere other than Venice. Set at the mouth of the Grand Canal, with the lagoon on one side and narrow alleyways on the other, the scene surrounding the Centurion Palace is about as typically Venetian as it could possibly be.

Ca’ Bonfadini

Venice, Italy

Venice is a place that wears opulence well. And while Ca’ Bonfadini may hide itself away behind a relatively unassuming, if handsome, 18th-century façade, what’s inside is the kind of high elegance for which the city has become practically synonymous. Its location, right on the Cannaregio canal, offers both convenience and quiet in roughly equal measure; its interiors an ode to the city’s neoclassical period.

Hotel Indigo Sant’Elena

Venice, Italy

The Hotel Indigo Venice – Sant’Elena is named for the island that lies just across the bridge from the hotel, at the far end of the city proper. And it makes its home not in some purpose-built hotel building but in a 1930s convent, a short walk from the 11th-century Church of Sant’Elena — a perfect venue for a hotel that aims to offer an air of tranquil contemplation.

The Venice Venice Hotel

Venice, Italy

The Venice Venice Hotel, dedicated as it is to “postvenezianità” — post-Venetian-ness — finds itself in the 13th-century Byzantine-style Palazzo Ca’ da Mosto, overlooking the Grand Canal and the Rialto Bridge. Its owners, however, have their sights set squarely on the future, and take their inspiration from the avant-garde spirit that they feel has always been an integral part of Venetian life.

Splendid Venice

Venice, Italy

The relationship between Splendid Venice, the hotel, and splendid Venice, the city, goes back a long time. An inn was first built on this site in the sixteenth century, and the property has been almost continuously in use as hotel since, although a 21st-century renovation eradicated any traces of mustiness. Can’t argue with the decision to keep the rosy façade with casement windows — splendid, indeed.

Nolinski Venezia

Venice, Italy

Nolinski Venezia is further proof that there’s no necessary tradeoff between high luxury and high fashion — in the right hands, a hotel is perfectly capable of delivering both. Nor does it shy away from the action. Nolinski Venezia is set on the Calle Larga XXII Marzo, in a stately building that once housed the city’s Chamber of Commerce, with high-end retailers like Ferragamo and Armani for neighbors.

Aman Venice

Venice, Italy

It’s fitting that Aman would choose this as the setting for their first city hotel. Like many of their far-flung, impossibly photogenic locales, there’s a sense that Venice isn’t quite of this earth. Rather than build something modern, they’ve made use of a meticulously preserved Renaissance palace as a setting. Of course in Venice it couldn’t be any other way, but it’s a pleasure to see that they know when to leave well enough alone.

Charming House iQs

Venice, Italy

Not IQs, as in Intelligence Quotient — though you will indeed feel smart staying here — but i Qs, Italian for, well, “the Qs.” This is an annex, or perhaps more precisely a satellite property, belonging to Charming House DD.724, and its four exceedingly stylish suites stand about twenty minutes from the main hotel, close by to the Piazza San Marco, with views over the Rio del Mondo Nuovo.

Ca’ di Dio

Venice, Italy

The greatest luxury a Venetian hotel can provide is a proper refuge from the perennially busy street life, and Ca’ di Dio, set in the Arsenale district where the Biennale takes place, does just that. It’s a classic house overlooking the lagoon, a patchwork that dates back many centuries, but thoroughly updated to modern luxury-hotel standards with an emphasis on high-end contemporary Italian design.

Hotel Gritti Palace

Venice, Italy

Venice is a magic city—the site of many a novel, love affair and Bellini cocktail, with pigeons, Canaletto style watery vistas, and alleyways and bridges that lead nowhere. In many ways, the only proper place to stay in Venice is a palace. And of all the palaces-turned-hotels in Venice, they say that the Hotel Gritti Palace is the most perfect.

Palazzina Grassi

Venice, Italy

If ever there were a city that needed a bit of the old Philippe Starck treatment it was Venice. With Palazzina Grassi, Starck is at full strength: masks on the bedside lamps, comically exaggerated chandeliers, mirrors on every surface. It’s a classic Venetian palazzo filtered through the mind of a dedicated anti-classicist, and the result was always going to be memorable.