Hmm, now that I’ve
been to Venice, I guess I’ll have to read or watch that Shakespeare’s play.
I loved Venice! It is
amazing. I stayed at two different hotels
while there and loved both of them for different reasons. The first hotel, Hotel Concordia, was right
in the heart of the action. Literally
outside the front of the hotel were numerous shops and restaurants. I technically didn’t have to leave that tiny
little area to get most of the things people want to do/see in Venice. The back of the hotel is on Piazzo San
Marco.
Now, if you’ve been reading my other posts, you know how I
like handrails. So that was one area of
issue that I had with the hotel. The
part on street level was essentially a very nice marble entryway with stairs up
to the lobby. If you have any reason you
can’t climb stairs (aside from my wimpy-where’s-the-handrails attitude), then
you might not want to stay here. Once up
in the lobby (0), there is a teeny tiny elevator that was even smaller than
other elevators I’ve seen in Europe.
While technically it could fit two people, I think I only ever saw one
person in it at a time. I had gotten a
great deal for a larger room on hotels.com.
I took the elevator up to the second floor (2) and then had to climb
more stairs up to an attic-type area. It
was a large room with a seating area and a nice bathroom. But, once again, if there were reasons I
couldn’t climb stairs, it would have been impossible to get up there since it
was stairs-elevator (or stairs)-and more stairs. However …Location …Location …Location! It was perfect for my personal goals
there. It also was easy to have some
friends meet me there since it was in the heart of so much activity. The best part of the location was early in
the morning and later in the evening when the bulk of the tourists weren’t
around. It had a completely different
feel as the merchants opened their shops before the first tour groups landed in
the area.
My second hotel was a few bridges over and about half-way
between Piazzo San Marco and the Rialto Bridge.
Hotel Ai Cavalieri di Venezia –on old 18th century palace
converted in Feb 2015 to a hotel (if I understood them correctly.) It was in a
quiet area but still close to the action to make it super convenient. The hotel didn’t have its own restaurant but
it did serve breakfast. (It’s sister
hotel was nearby with a restaurant but I didn’t check it out.) It was probably a good thing that I had to
leave the hotel to go find food because I don’t think I’d want to leave it
otherwise. I ended up in a junior suite
that was on the first floor (or second floor for those from the US.) It was gorgeous with an original fresco on
the ceiling. Seriously, I spent a lot of
time staring at the ceiling. The room
was clean. The furniture (looked like
antiques or really good replicas) was beautiful and huge, and the bathroom was
all marble but with an anti-slip mat that I had been longing for in the other
three hotels I’d stayed in during my trip to Italy. The hotel itself had some great options for
boat tours, Murano glass tours, and even the fireworks display for a big event
in Venice. I was content to just see the
neighborhood and stare at my ceiling. ;)
I ended up with more stuff than could fit in my bag so I
decided to take a water taxi back to the train station. It was a flat fee of 70Euros. While it was a lot compared to a Vaporetto, I
figured it was a chance to see different parts of the city than would be
possible otherwise as we went through smaller canals. I had to order it about 30 minutes in advance
but he showed up about 20 minutes after the call. (My hotel had its own water boarding area.)
Getting on and off the water taxi was not a problem since
they seemed very used to accommodating tourists. In fact the main problem was after I was on
the dock that one of the other tourists trying to get to the water taxi and it
was hard to get around her on the narrow dock.
Not the water taxi’s fault. I’d
recommend it if you have the ability to do so.