25 Venice Hotels Worth Knowing
A doge’s palace, a gambling house where Casanova played, a pilgrims’ hospice of 1272, and the rooms where Monet and Ruskin worked.
No city turns its old buildings into hotels quite like Venice. The list below has a 14th-century doge’s palace, the 1638 gambling house where Casanova played, a pilgrims’ hospice founded in 1272, and the rooms where Monet, Ruskin, and Tchaikovsky worked.
The list is grouped by character, not ranked. Each hotel’s name links to its own site, where the rate is current and you book direct. A few of the island and Lido hotels run only from spring to autumn, so check the dates before a winter trip.
The grand old ones
Danieli, a Four Seasons Hotel · Riva degli Schiavoni
The heart of the Danieli is the Palazzo Dandolo, built for the Dandolo family late in the 14th century. Giuseppe Dal Niel opened it as a hotel in 1822, and it took his nickname. George Sand and Alfred de Musset spent the winter of 1833 here in the middle of their affair. It left Marriott’s Luxury Collection after a long restoration and reopened in July 2026 as a Four Seasons.
The Gritti Palace · San Marco
Built in 1475 for the Pisani, the palazzo became the home of Doge Andrea Gritti in 1525 and still carries his name. Hemingway stayed in 1948 and put his own hero up at the Gritti in Across the River and into the Trees. It reopened in 2013 after a fifteen-month restoration.
Hotel Excelsior Venice Lido · Lido di Venezia
The Excelsior opened on the Lido in 1908 as a neo-Moorish beach palace, grand enough to be called the largest resort hotel in the world at the time. The first Venice Film Festival was held on its terrace in 1932. It is still the center of the festival every September, with the stars pulling up at its pier by boat.
Hotel Cipriani, A Belmond Hotel · Giudecca
Giuseppe Cipriani, the man behind Harry’s Bar, opened this hotel on the tip of Giudecca in 1958 with backing from the Guinness family. Its enormous seawater pool went in three years later, and the house story blames a mix-up between meters and feet in the plans. James Sherwood’s Orient-Express group, now Belmond, bought it in 1976 as its very first hotel.
Baglioni Hotel Luna · San Marco
The Luna bills itself as the oldest hotel in Venice, tracing its line to a lodging of 1118 that is said to have housed Knights Templar on their way to the Crusades. Its Marco Polo ballroom keeps 18th-century frescoes painted by pupils of Tiepolo. It reopened in 2021 after a full renovation.
Used to be something else
Hotel Monaco & Grand Canal · San Marco
Part of the hotel is the Ridotto, the first state-run public gambling house in Europe, opened in 1638. Casanova played in its masked salons before the Senate closed the Ridotto in 1774. A restoration finished in 2004 brought the old gaming rooms back into use for the hotel’s events.
Ca’ di Dio · Castello
Ca’ di Dio began in 1272 as a hospice for pilgrims setting out for the Holy Land. Its 16th-century rebuilding is attributed to Jacopo Sansovino. It reopened as a hotel in 2021, with interiors by Patricia Urquiola.
Nolinski Venezia · San Marco
The building was Venice’s stock exchange and chamber of commerce, a few steps from Piazza San Marco. It opened as a hotel in 2023, the first in Italy for the Paris group Evok. The exchange’s double-height trading hall is now the library lounge.
San Clemente Palace Kempinski · Isola di San Clemente
The church on this lagoon island was founded in 1131 as a hospice for pilgrims and crusaders. After centuries as a monastery, the island held a psychiatric asylum for women from the 1800s until 1992. The resort opened in 2003, and guests still cross from San Marco by private boat.
Palazzi that kept their art
Aman Venice · San Polo
Aman occupies Palazzo Papadopoli, built on the Grand Canal in the 1550s for the Coccina family. The ceilings of the main floor still carry 18th-century frescoes, some by Tiepolo. George and Amal Clooney were married here in 2014, the year after the hotel opened.
Ca’ Sagredo Hotel · Cannaregio
A 15th-century palazzo on the Grand Canal, Ca’ Sagredo was the Sagredo family’s home from 1661. Pietro Longhi’s 1734 fresco of the fall of the giants covers the wall above its grand staircase. The building is protected as a national monument, and much of its painted decoration is intact.
Palazzo Venart · Santa Croce
Palazzo Venart opened in 2016 in a restored 16th-century house on the Grand Canal. Its restaurant, GLAM, under Enrico Bartolini, holds two Michelin stars. The restoration turned up Renaissance wall paintings, and the hotel has a private garden opening onto the canal, rare in Venice.
The Venice Venice Hotel · Cannaregio
The hotel is in Ca’ da Mosto, a 13th-century Veneto-Byzantine palazzo it bills as the oldest on the Grand Canal. The navigator Alvise Da Mosto was born here in 1432, and as the Leon Bianco inn the house put up Emperor Joseph II in the 1770s. The founders of Golden Goose opened it in 2022 as an art project they call postvenetian.
Palazzo Abadessa · Cannaregio
Palazzo Abadessa is a 16th-century house entered through its own walled garden, a rarity in Venice. Its salon ceilings carry frescoes attributed to followers of Tintoretto and Veronese. It opened in 1998 as one of the city’s first heritage hotels, furnished with the owners’ antiques.
Where the artists worked
The St. Regis Venice · San Marco
Claude Monet stayed in the hotel that stood here before, the Grand Hotel Britannia, in the autumn of 1908, and painted the lagoon from his windows. The St. Regis relaunched in 2019 after a full rebuild of the old Europa & Regina. It runs across five linked buildings, one of them the 17th-century Palazzo Tiepolo.
Hotel Metropole · Riva degli Schiavoni
The hotel stands where the Ospedale della Pietà once was, the orphanage where Vivaldi taught music to the girls from 1703. The Beggiato family has run it since 1968 and filled it with their own collections — antique fans, corkscrews, crucifixes. Earlier guests are said to have included Freud and Thomas Mann.
Londra Palace Venezia · Riva degli Schiavoni
Tchaikovsky stayed in December 1877, when the house was called the Beau-Rivage, and dated the first movements of his Fourth Symphony from his room. The hotel was founded in 1853 on the Riva degli Schiavoni, and its facade is known for its hundred windows over the lagoon.
La Calcina · Dorsoduro
John Ruskin lodged here in 1877, on the Zattere looking across to the Giudecca, and a plaque on the front records it. His corner room, number 2, is still let under his name.
Locanda Cipriani · Torcello
Giuseppe Cipriani opened this inn on the quiet island of Torcello in 1935, as the lagoon outpost of his Harry’s Bar. Hemingway stayed in the autumn of 1948, shooting ducks in the lagoon while he wrote Across the River and into the Trees. It closed for restoration and reopened in 2026 with ten rooms, still in the Cipriani family.
Pensione Accademia Villa Maravege · Dorsoduro
The Pensione Accademia fills the 17th-century Villa Maravege, with gardens where a side canal meets the Grand Canal. It served as the Russian consulate between the wars. Katharine Hepburn’s pensione in the 1955 film Summertime is taken to be this house.
Oltre il Giardino · San Polo
Alma Mahler, the composer’s widow, bought this house in 1922 and lived here through the decade. It reopened in 2007 as a six-room hotel, hidden behind its walled garden near the Frari.
The small and personal ones
Il Palazzo Experimental · Dorsoduro
Il Palazzo Experimental opened in 2019 in Palazzo Molin on the Zattere, the Paris group’s first hotel in Italy. Dorothée Meilichzon designed the interiors, playing Venetian terrazzo against striped cabana colors. The building had earlier held offices of the Adriatica shipping line.
Ca’ Pisani Hotel · Dorsoduro
Ca’ Pisani opened in 2000 in a 16th-century Pisani palazzo behind the Accademia, and bills itself as the first design hotel in Venice. The rooms are furnished with original Italian pieces from the 1930s and 40s, set against graphics of the futurist era.
Hotel Flora · San Marco
The Romanelli family has run the Flora since 1964, now into a third generation. The palazzo is said to have held a painting school in the 17th century. Its walled garden sits just off Piazza San Marco.
Novecento Boutique Hotel · San Marco
The same Romanelli family behind the Flora opened the Novecento in 2002. Its nine rooms look back to Venice around 1900, with fabrics and pieces in the Orientalist taste of Mariano Fortuny.
Frequently Asked Questions
Are these hotels ranked?
No. The groups sort them by character, and the order within each group carries no meaning.
What made a hotel interesting enough for this list?
A story. Every entry was a palazzo, a gaming house, a hospice, a monastery, or the place an artist worked. Comfort alone did not qualify a hotel.
Why are there no prices?
Rates change daily and a priced list goes stale in a month. Every hotel name links to its own site, where the rate is current and you book direct.
Which hotel puts me closest to the day trips on this site?
Trains to the mainland day trips leave from Santa Lucia at the top of the Grand Canal, and the island and Lido hotels add a boat ride on top of that. The Cannaregio and San Marco hotels sit closest to the station.
Do the small hotels book out faster than the grand ones?
Usually. The six-room places — Oltre il Giardino, La Calcina, Novecento — fill first. Book those before the palazzi.