I will be in Venice at the tail end of Carnevale; my budget is under $150/night. How hard should I look to find a hotel on island? For my budget and timeframe, the only possibilities I've found so far are Mestre (Best Western, Holiday Inn...ugh) or possibly Lido (Feb. not exactly beach weather). By having to take train from Mestre, will I be sacrificing a lot? Suggestions on affordable but clean places always welcome.

I don't think you want either one (i.e., not Lido, nor Mestre), Jeff. <BR> <BR>Are you familiar with the two major services - - www.italyhotel.com (also known as www.venere.com) or www.itwg.com - - both offer an easy way to check everything they have, all at once. <BR> <BR>Although you don't give details of your particular needs, I just now plugged in Feb 10-13 (Carnevale is Feb 1-12), a double room for three nights - - and I got 38 hotels listing vacancies. Of these, I think that the Tintoretto or the Florida (both on Cannaregio) are worth your looking into. The Florida, in particular, has received some pretty good comments here. And both are (just barely within your price range - - assuming you mean under 300.000 ITL per night for a double. <BR> <BR>Best wishes, <BR> <BR>Rex <BR>

Jeff, check out www.venere.it and follow the links to Venice. You'll find hotels in your price range and in the area you might want to stay. You can also search for hotels with availabilities during the time you'll be there. It's a great site.

Jeff - <BR> <BR>To fully experience Venice & most certainly during Carnevale, you really should try to stay on the island. <BR> <BR>I'm assuming that hotels may raise their rates a bit during that time of year; when I went to Venice last October, I stayed in a small place called Hotel Galleria. My only caveat with Galleria is you may not want to stay in their one single room -- it's itty bitty. However the doubles, altho cozy accommadations are reasonably priced. No elevator and several of the rooms share the bathroom on hallway. It's very affordable and especially so, when you consider location (on Grand Canal, right by Accademia bridge & vaparetto stop). <BR> <BR>E-mail = [email protected] and <BR>website = http://www.hotelgalleria.it/presentazionebri.htm

Another couple of hotels that should fall into your price range are: <BR> <BR> - Hotel Ai Do Mori <BR> - Al Gambero <BR> <BR>Both are located within the St. Mark’s district. <BR> <BR>And if you don't already have these websites, here's locations to access hotels/info on Venice - <BR> <BR>http://www.hotelsinvenice.com/ <BR>http://www.veniceinfo.it/ <BR>http://www.venicescapes.org/ <BR>http://www.veniceword.com/index.html <BR>http://www.initaly.com/index.htm <BR>http://www.itwg.com <BR> <BR>

' ttt <BR> <BR>Any other suggestions?