Venice
 

This will be my husband's and my first trip to Venice. I have been reading and searching the internet until I am blurry eyed. It seems like there are 500 hotels in Venice, and most sound great. Help! We are in our mid-fifties and now like a little more comfort and like being waited on. We also want to have gorgeous view that we will dream of forever.
Also would love to have a list of must sees. We will only be there 3 nights.

We took our first trip to Venice a little over a year ago, and stayed at Palazzo Sant'Angelo. It is a 14 room luxury hotel, and prices were reasonable. Right on the Grand Canal, and we paid the little extra per night to have a room with a balcony overlooking the Grand Canal. The hotel is fairly new, so while decorated in traditional Venetian style, it has the modern amenities. Very large room, walk in closet, large marble bathroom. Very lovely breakfast room. It is very close to San Marco (about a 5-10 minute walk to Piazza San Marco), and equal walk to Rialto Bridge. All sights were very convenient. You can check it out at sinahotels.com. The "best rate" they show on their web site was the best rate we found and we booked on that site. We would definitely stay there again on our next trip.
Must sees include Piazza San Marco and trip to top of Campanile there, Doge's Palace. We really enjoyed just walking around.

Hello dmm22, a hotel I especially love and thought of reading your post is the Hotel S. Cassiano "Ca Favretto".
It is in the section of San Palo..just a few minutes walk to the Rialto Bridge and just a few minutes more walking time to Pizza San Marco.

Do check this hotel out on TripAdvisors to see what you think. If you reserve a room at the "front" of the hotel you will be overlooking the Grand Canal and the Ca de Oro.

Best wishes to you both for a beautiful time in Venice.

It's very easy to narrow down the choices, because unless you are travelling in winter the great majority of those hotels are booked up or just offer bad value or location. So I would use a web site that lets you type in the dates, then just presents the hotels that have those dates open. And also ones that show the location on a map. Venere.com does the latter, but I forget how well it does the former. I would avoid the train station area, ghetto, rialto, bus and ocean liner area, and even pigeon poo central, er... I mean san marco sq.

Hi dmm,

Locanda Orseolo has gotten good reviews on this forum.

http://www.veniceby.com/orseolo/

>...would love to have a list of must sees.<

Look up the mini guide to Venice under "Destinations".

((I))

If it's a gorgeous view that you're after take a look at the photograph of our view from the Londra Palace.

http://www.colin-julie.com/Venice07.jpg

It was a great hotel, excellent location on the Riva degli Schiavoni. San Marco is "just around the corner"!

The breakfast was of a great standard which is always a bonus.

I kept a journal of my stay and have also posted hundreds of photographs here:

http://www.colin-julie.com/Venindex.htm

Have a beautiful time. You will adore Venice.

"Also would love to have a list of must sees. We will only be there 3 nights."

Click on Destinations at the top of this page and find your way to Europe/Italy /Vencie. They usually have 3 and 5 day itineraries listed covering the main sites. A good guidebook will tell you the same.

Do read Colin's report. It's very entertaining and provides a great feel for just meandering around the city.

See my trip report:

http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...iz01&fid=2

Have a great trip

Diz01

also, if you do a search here on this forum on Venice you will find a lot of great tips and suggestions.

I'm new to this forum but I've been to Venice. Some of the more luxurious hotels with a view of the Grand Canal are the Europa Regina, the Bauer Palazzo, and the Gritti Palace but they are quite expensive.

Colin: I am only half way through your Venice report and it's cracking me up. Just the kind of humour I'm starved of over here. Great pictures too.

www.lacalcina.com with a front corner room facing the Guidecca canal. it's a nice 3-star so maybe not up to your expectations but it's a lovely place to stay.

must see's for me in Venice are simply walking, wandering, and getting lost in the city (it's not all that big).