Palazzo Contarini Porta di Ferro - Venice, Italy 

I can't say how much we enjoyed our 4-day stay at the Palazzo. The Palazzo exudes old gothic Venice, and the neighborhood is so charmingly local Venice and far far from the crowds. We stayed in the Sant'Angelo Room with a vaulted ceiling, terrazo floor and period furnishings, and with 2 balconies overlooking the San Francesco della Vigna Campanille and the canal nearby. All the staff (Cristina, Valentina, Ivan, Enrico) are impeccably professional. They accommodated our crazy arrival-departure schedules and our demanding dinner reservation requests so winningly. While it is not San Marco-central, we rather preferred coming "home" to the peace and quiet that this location offered, after spending a day inevitably milling about with the crowd. Yet, it is really only about a 10-15 minute leisurely walk away to major city attractions (Piazza, Rialto, San Polo etc.). Its location is especially convenient for Biennale venues (Arsenale is only about 5-10 minutes away and Giardini just a bit more.) I highly recommend this lovely jewel of a guesthouse in the heart of old Venice.

This is a great place to stay if you have been to Venice a few times and want to feel like you live there. If you have never been before and want to see all the sites, you will be doing a lot of walking from this palazzo. It really is a bit out of the way of most of the tourist sites. Again, that might be a good thing... Now, to the palazzo itself...the common areas are amazing. The room itself was not. We stayed in the la Grazia suite which needed plaster and paint. The 1970's era kitchen was a bit tired and not adequately appointed. When you turned on the lights with the dropped ceiling, you saw all the bugs and debris that fell from the original ceiling. This situation exists in the dropped ceiling between the two bedrooms. Needless to say, we left these lights off. The bathroom was nice and modern, but here too they had holes or gaps around the fixtures that made you wonder what was inside the walls. They could have fixed this with a few minutes of spackle and some paint...but they didn't. The staff was first rate and informative. No problems here. This could be a real nice 4 or 5 star place with just a little bit of work. I hope the owners read this and address these problems. Now, we love modern furniture. But it just doesn't look right in this type of room. They should get rid of the silly modern table and chairs and put in some reproduction guest friendly pieces that look like they belong. PS. They also promised me a welcome basket upon my arrival. It never came. There is a market across the street and several a short walk away so that is nice too.