10 of the best hotels in Venice, from palazzos to wine resorts

‘La Serenissima’ can be at its most romantic out of season — when the fog drifting over the canals is so thick the gondolas seem to float on air, and summer’s visitors have thinned. You’ll still want to book your accommodation in advance but you’ll hardly be short of options. Some of the grandest stays are in the shadow of St Mark’s Square, while more residential sestieri (districts) such as Santa Croce offer a slice of local life. For something different, opt for nearby islands — such as the Lido, site of the Venice Film Festival, or Mazzorbo, where grapevines have grown for centuries. Whichever you choose, the most atmospheric way to arrive is by ferry or water taxi — this is a city best experienced on water, after all.

1. Il Palazzo Experimental

Best for: art-lovers
Globular Murano lampshades, vintage radios, amorphous contemporary sculptures — this den of quirks overlooking the Giudecca Canal makes Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel look like a mouldy motel. Its rooms are jewel boxes of marble, mahogany and striped upholstery, while the downstairs restaurant and cocktail bar brim with mid-century glamour — their low-lit tables swaddled by ruby couches. The whole place exudes art-student cool, perhaps unsurprisingly given its proximity to the Galleria Accademia, as well as the campuses of Ca’ Foscari University and the Accademia di Belle Arti. You’re likely to find students of both sipping wine outside the bars of Fondamenta Nani. Rooms: From €227 (£200), B&B.

2. Ca’ di Dio

Best for: spiritual renewal
The ‘House of God’ has been accommodating guests since 1272, when the travellers arriving across the flagstones were pilgrims on their way to the Holy Land. The imposing exterior and lagoon views remain, though the visitors checking in today have nothing more devout in mind than a thorough cosseting. It’s the sort of place that makes you abandon plans to explore Venice — seduced by the wood-panelled cocktail bar, the tasting menus in Vero restaurant and the peace offered by its internal garden. You might also struggle to get past the showstopper foyer, with the facade of the Oratorio di Santa Maria taking up one wall. The 55 bedrooms invite quiet contemplation, their soft palettes enlivened with Murano lamps and marble-accented furniture. Rooms: From €325 (£285).

3. Palazzo Cristo San Marco

Best for: star treatment
The suites and apartments inside this 13th-century palazzo between St Mark’s Square and the Rialto Bridge are empires in themselves. The most extravagant feature open-plan living rooms whose floor-to-ceiling windows look onto a private garden strung with Murano lanterns. It’s said that opera composer Gioachino Rossini once lived here, but you’ll find none of the historical pomp you might expect. Instead, contemporary design elements usher in the city’s natural colours and textures — from travertine marble floors worthy of St Mark’s Basilica to cashew-curved couches coloured pink like the lagoon at sunset. Rooms: From €950 (£835); two-night minimum stay.

4. Venissa Wine Resort

Best for: oenophiles
If you’d visited St Mark’s Square around 900CE, you’d have found not a piazza but a vineyard lush with indigenous grape varietals. Located on the tiny island of Mazzorbo, this working estate was founded to reinstate one such grape, the dorona. It also offers five lodgings overlooking the vines, with an additional 13 rooms tucked away in colourful cottages on the adjoining island of Burano. Everyone has access to the walled vineyard, not to mention the chance to sample its vintages — during a guided tasting or over fresh seafood cicchetti (small plates) at the cosy osteria. Rooms: From €136 (£119), B&B.

5. Hotel Flora

Best for: time travel
A traveller teleported from their 19th-century Grand Tour to land at Hotel Flora wouldn’t find much of modern life to surprise them — except, perhaps, decent plumbing and easy access to the high-end boutiques on nearby Calle Larga XXII Marzo. The friendly, family-run pensione is a charmingly eccentric place, occupying a mazey 17th-century palazzo packed with antiques and period furnishings. Come aperitivo time, guests drift towards the small bar, then take their Negronis to the fairy-lit garden or peaceful sitting room. On the floors above, bedrooms feature Murano glass chandeliers, wooden beams and views over San Marco’s mishmash of tiled rooftops. Rooms: From €175 (£153), B&B.

6. Hotel Excelsior Venice Lido Resort

Best for: Hollywood glamour
As you moor at this 1908 grand dame on Lido, you might fancy yourself a star of the silver screen. The fantasy isn’t too far-fetched. The Venice Film Festival is held right next door, and A-listers regularly get red-carpet-ready in the Excelsior’s rooms, which could calm the most frazzled nerves with their pastel palettes and Adriatic views. There’s drama in the architecture, too, from the Moorish-style arches seen throughout to the fin-de-siècle plasterwork in the Sala Stucchi, an events space that starred in Once Upon a Time in America. A mahogany speedboat ferries guests to St Mark’s Square — but the cabanas at the private beach club might tempt you to stay Lido-side, living out your starlet fantasies. Rooms: From €403 (£354), B&B.

7. Indigo Venice Sant’Elena

Best for: peace on a budget
The Mantellate Sisters chose wisely. Looking to house their order in the 1930s, they plumped for a quiet corner of Castello. When they moved out of the convent in 1999, the Indigo Venice Sant’Elena moved in, and the hotel continues to be a peaceful refuge to return to after a day getting lost on the city’s labyrinthine canals and alleyways. Despite a thorough renovation of its 75 rooms in 2019, the nuns would still recognise much here, including the marble floors, spiral staircase and an internal garden created from the old cloisters. Less familiar is the lively bar and restaurant, Savor, which delivers inventive cocktails and classic pasta in a spot once occupied by the sisters’ church. Rooms: From €133 (£117); two-night minimum stay.

8. Venice Venice Hotel

Best for: playful design
The Venice Venice has taken the template of the palazzo hotel and chucked it in the lagoon — there’s no heavy antique furniture or hushed reverence for a fabled golden age here. This is bold, playful Venice, on defiant display in a 13th-century palazzo overlooking the Rialto Bridge. The social spaces give no hint of the dark drama to come, whether you step from a river taxi on to a terrace lapped by the Grand Canal or come through the hotel’s lifestyle store and stop for cicchetti in the M’Art restaurant. Upstairs, worn stone staircases and dark corridors lead to continual surprises — perhaps an avant-garde sculpture or the private members’ bar. The suites, decorated with modernist-style furniture and contemporary artwork, are bathed in light sweeping through their tall windows. Canaletto famously painted the view from one of them — you might feel similarly inspired. Rooms: From €560 (£491), B&B.

9. Violino d’Oro

Best for: gourmands
This 32-room enclave lies steps from the Chiesa di San Moisè — perhaps the most resplendent of all Venice’s baroque churches. In truth, the stone saints adorning its facade look like they’d rather be enjoying aperitivo in Violino d’Oro’s cocktail bar, where bartender Francesco pours Campari below a Venini chandelier. Upstairs, rooms are adorned with 18th-century portraits and crystal-cut wash basins, but the main attraction is the property’s in-house restaurant Il Piccolo. Here, chefs Ruslan Khuda and Antonio Lusso serve up plates of wafer-thin scallop and sea bass carpaccio alongside local staples like risi e bisi — the spring risotto Venetian families make using the year’s first peas. Rooms: From €650 (£570), B&B.

10. Cima Rosa

Best for: local warmth
Lapped by the waters of the Grand Canal, this homely bed and breakfast rests behind a tangle of roses in Santa Croce — a neighbourhood whose squares still hum with the chatter of local families. That inviting, lived-in atmosphere extends to the renovated palazzo’s five rooms, each one artfully decorated with antique coffee tables, salvaged woodworker’s benches and hand-painted bedsteads. Many of the medieval house’s original features remain, too, including a botanical fresco unearthed during restoration works, with home-cooked breakfasts served below exposed wooden beams in the communal living area — a great spot to pick up restaurant recommendations. Rooms: From €255 (£224), B&B.