Recommendations For a Hotel - Venice, Italy

Question

I am planning a trip to Venice with a friend and would like to know of a really nice hotel to stay in.

About us: We are both in our early 30's, love great food and cocktail bars. We like to spend out evenings dancing away and our daytimes taking in the culture of the places we visit.

So a hotel in a livelier area of the city would suit, budget isn't really an issue, unless they expect £500 per night, that would be out of both of our price ranges. Ideally I would be looking to spend around EUR 100 - EUR 150 per night, based on a 4 night stay, especially seeing as this is for my friends birthday, I will be paying for both rooms. I also plan to travel the last weekend in January.

I look forward to replies.

(Just to clear up any confusion, my friend and I are of the opposite sex, so while I would sleep anywhere as long as its clean, she would like something a little more classy :))

Answer 1

Culture is in Venice city itself, whereas nightlife can be found on isola di Lido or on terra ferma at Mestre. Hotel accomodation is less expensive in these two places but it is less romantic as well.

Booking an hotel in Venice may be the right choice, considering that Mestre is reachable by train and Lido by vaporetto (last train from Mestre at 23h46, next at 5h16 (Hafas); last vaporetto from Lido at 23h06, next at 4h16 (ACTV)).

For the exact location in Venice, I would avoid San Marco sestiere (link to italian Wikipedia because of the map) because of the tourist crowds. Same for San Polo near Ponte di Rialto.

Answer 2

Venice is an expensive and small place. You can pay thousands of euros a night to stay steps (and they mean steps) from San Marco. But even if you're within sight of the train station, you're no more than an hour from San Marco on foot, quicker with the vaporetti. When you're searching the various travel sites, any hotel that is actually in Venice itself as opposed to the mainland will be close enough to everything for you.

When I went, we were lucky - we found a place that many people literally cannot find. We downloaded a YouTube video showing the walk from the vap stop to the hotel. Without it we would have been one of the unhappy people who won't use this hotel. It was less than a one minute walk from Marco Polo's house, super close to everything we wanted to go to, quiet and luxurious. (The hotel was Cà Bragadin Carabba for those who want to know, but that's not the point.) The point is to search the travel sites, look where the hotel is, and choose one within your budget that is in the right section (sestiere) of town. For example, Castello is the closest to "normal" with less restaurants, tourist sites etc. San Polo and San Marco are the most touristy. If you locate the things you want to go to, you will get an idea of the "vibe" of the different parts of the town.

Some people don't want to stay on Guidecca because you need to take a vap to get to anything. I didn't think that would be an issue for me - then again I didn't stay on Guidecca. We were just 5 minutes from Rialto and that made it trivial to find restaurants, stores of every kind, whatever we wanted. Just understand the scale you're dealing with - you walk everywhere, and its very small.

Answer 3

I assume that the max EUR150 is for 1 room, per night.

Hotel Le Isole

Campo San Provolo - Castello 4661, Castello, 30122 Venice

The hotel gets a review score of 9.4 from booking.com and quite classy. If you book from booking.com, it will be exactly EUR150 pernight. But note that city tax is not included.