Palazzo Maria Formosa

Palazzo Maria Formosa

Arrive by water taxi from the airport or the train station, about twenty minutes across the lagoon, and the boat delivers guests straight to the Water Door of Palazzo Maria Formosa, the entrance that greeted visitors here for centuries before hotels needed street addresses. That approach sets it apart from the newer hotels along Riva degli Schiavoni or the larger resorts on Giudecca: no other hotel in this part of Castello offers quite this threshold, half history lesson, half theatre. Inside, the palazzo keeps its scale modest, twenty-six rooms across a building where the Marble Room and a small wellness centre with sauna and spa sit near a restaurant and the Peacock Bar, its menu changing with the seasons. Breakfast can be taken in the room if the maze of streets outside can wait, and vegetarian and vegan options are standard rather than a special request. Location does the rest of the work: St Mark's Basilica, the Rialto Bridge and St Mark's Square are all within walking distance, and the Doge's Palace is under fifteen minutes on foot, so the neighbourhood rewards wandering after dark without a map. This suits travellers who want Venice's set pieces close but not on the doorstep, who would rather arrive by boat than drag a case across three bridges, and who find twenty-six rooms more reassuring than sixty or seventy. It will do less for anyone chasing an outdoor pool or a tennis court, which belong to hotels elsewhere on the water. What Palazzo Maria Formosa has that its neighbours do not is that water door, still doing the job it was built for centuries, still the first and best introduction to the hotel. A water taxi delivers guests straight to the Water Door, the palazzo's centuries-old entrance, in Castello near St Mark's Square and the Rialto Bridge. Twenty-six rooms, a Marble Room wellness centre and the Peacock Bar keep it intimate. Suits those who would rather arrive by boat than by suitcase.