If you haven’t entered any dates, the rate shown is provided directly by the hotel and represents the cheapest double room (including tax) available in the next 60 days.
Prices have been converted from the hotel’s local currency (EUR954.55), via openexchangerates.org, using today’s exchange rate.
Mirrored in terracotta-tinted waterways, Venice makes you feel like you’ve stepped into a painting. Palazzo Garzoni puts you at the epicentre of it all. The allure of La Serenissima, in all her majesty and mystery, is palpable here, yet the four apartments in this renovated 15th-century palazzo, each have something different to say about it. The Piano Nobile is the grandest of them all, boasting floor-to-ceiling Gothic windows, restored frescoes and spectacular palatial proportions. Upstairs, the Canal Grande frames its views of the Rialto Bridge and rocks Seventies chic, while the Terrazetta and Rialto deliver cosy and intimate terraces overlooking the Venetian rooftops.
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Four apartments arranged over four floors with one large five-bedroom residence taking up the first and second floor.
Check–Out
11am. Earliest check-in, 4pm. Both are flexible an hour either side, subject to availability and on request.
Prices
Double rooms from £899.21 (€1,050), including tax at 10 per cent. Please note the hotel charges an additional local city tax of €4.00 per person per night on check-in.
More details
Rates don't typically include breakfast (available on request for €35 a day, plus a butler fee).
Also
There is an elevator to all floors in the building. Public spaces and some rooms are accessible for guests with mobility issues.
Please note
dir="ltr">There is restricted access to Venice from April to July; as a hotel guest, you'll be able to enter the city for free, just remember to grab your online voucher first!
At the hotel
Free WiFi throughout; access to private pier for gondolas, taxis and boats, private gym (for guests staying in the Piano Nobile apartment only). In rooms: washing machine and tumble drier, soundsystem, TV, air-conditioning, iron, ironing board, coffee machine, tea and coffee, free bottled water (still and sparkling), and Acqua dell’Elba bathroom products.
Our favourite rooms
Ceilings of the Piano Nobile's ‘salone’ are extraordinary, as is the sweeping marble stairwell, which features hand-painted wallpaper by an artist who creates the scenery for the opera house. Upstairs, the shift in ceiling height gives the other three apartments an entirely different intimate feel, with each having its own take on chic Italian design. Canal Grande, while also offering a canalside view with glimpses of the Rialto bridge, is defined by sleek modern interior furnishings. Textiles by the Fortuny company (founded by artist and designer Mariano Fortuny), curated decorative pieces and bespoke wood-panelled furniture have a Seventies flavour. The small two-bedroom Terrazzetta has its own romance to it. Light and bright, the charming private terrace offers views across the rooftops and a quiet escape from the buzz. And up in the beams, the top-floor Rialto offers a spacious and stylish family-friendly loft space with a cosy snug, again in a Seventies colour palette of earthy greens and reds. Along with a fully equipped kitchen and dining room, you also have exclusive access to the ‘altana’ roof terrace, the perfect spot for an aperitivo.
Packing tips
There are oodles of churches in Venice, many of which still hold mass. If visiting in summer, make sure you have something to cover up your shoulders when popping in to take a look - St Mark's Basilica has a strict dress code.
Also
If renting the entire palazzo, all guests can access the gym, not just those staying in the Piano Nobile. The communal ground-floor space can also be utilised for parties.
Children
It’s not possible to add extra beds but baby cots can be added to rooms free of charge.
We certainly wouldn’t judge you for dining in your robe – you are on holiday after all.
Hotel restaurant
With just serviced apartments, Palazzo Garzoni has no restaurant. All have fully equipped kitchens, should you feel inclined to whip up a carbonara, but otherwise there is no shortage of eateries serving phenomenal food, in walking distance of the property and beyond. Piano Nobile has a professional kitchen, but guests must hire a private chef or catering team on request (for €800, excluding food and drink) to use it.
Hotel bar
There isn’t one onsite, but all apartments have fridge-freezers for your own drinks and ice. Bottled water is provided. In addition to the kitchen on the first floor, Piano Nobile has a designated bar area on the upper floor for making tea, coffee or something a little stronger.
Palazzo Garzoni is a renovated 15th-century ancient palazzo in the San Marco district, overlooking the Grand Canal. It’s minutes from Piazza San Marco and the Rialto Bridge, so you couldn’t be better placed to savour Venice in all its splendour.
Planes
From Marco Polo Airport, a taxi boat for up to eight people (with a maximum of 10 pieces of luggage) costs around €180 (with a base price of €140 for up to four passengers with one piece of luggage each). By public transport, the Alilaguna water bus or ‘vaporetto’ takes an hour to get to Sant’Angelo, the stop that’s right outside the property. Venice can in theory be reached by bus, train, car or taxi, but with no vehicles allowed beyond Piazzale Roma, you’ll have to jump aboard some form of waterborne vessel in order to reach the hotel.
Trains
Venice is served by the well-connected Santa Lucia train station with direct trains coming from Rome, Florence and Milan.
Automobiles
Cars are not permitted in Venice, but they can be parked at the airport or on nearby Tronchetto Island.
Other
The hotel also has a private pontoon for boats, gondolas and water taxis and there’s a gondolier stop right next to the hotel where you can hop on board the traghetto (the cheap and cheerful gondola alternative, steered by two gondoliers). Note that the traghetti are designed for the Venetian workers, so they only run at certain times of day and some do not run during the weekends.
Worth getting out of bed for
Bathed in a terracotta glow, Venice has more photogenic vistas than you can shake a Cornetto at. And they are all best admired from the water. With Palazzo Garzoni situated right on the Grand Canal (complete with a private pontoon, and gondolier and vaporetto stops), hop straight onto a gondola, water taxi, water bus or a traghetto, and start taking it all in. This is the city that has art and culture pumping through its veins, particularly during the world-famous Biennale which takes place every other year between April and November. For year-round culture fixes, there are countless morsels of art and history at every turn. In addition to being a stone’s throw from the Teatro La Fenice, contemporary art lovers are well-positioned for exhibits at Palazzo Grassi (one of two sites in Venice that house the François Pinault collection), while iconic works from the Peggy Guggenheim Museum (Picasso, Rothko, Magritte and more) are a 10-minute walk away.
Here you’re in easy reach of the biggest sites on the Venice checklist (Saint Mark’s Square and the Rialto Bridge are indeed must-sees), but in this city, it’s best to put the Google Maps away, look up and simply get lost in the labyrinth.
Local restaurants
Just a 10-minute walk from the property, Bistrot de Venise revives historic Venetian dishes that date back as far as the 14th century. Follow caviar with sépe in tecia spaghettoni (cuttlefish in black sauce with saffron cuttlefish roe); a main of duck breast in pevarada sauce (apple, grape, onion, mustard) and leave a bit of room for some unmissable tiramisu.
Local cafés
Possibly the most expensive coffee you’ll ever order, but worth it for the quintessential Venice experience – particularly when accompanied by live music. After a gondola ride, a coffee at the iconic Caffè Florian in Saint Mark’s Square features on virtually every Venice checklist of things to do; but don’t let that put you off. Note that there is an additional charge of €6 a person when music is playing, but if you have your coffee standing at the counter, the bill won’t be quite so eye-watering.
Local bars
An eight-minute walk will take you to Enoteco Al Volto, Venice’s oldest wine bar. Dating back to 1936, it’s a cosy wood-panelled space that’s perfect for sampling some classic Venetian ombre e cicchetti.
Every hotel featured is visited personally by members of our team, given the Smith seal of approval, and then anonymously reviewed. As soon as our reviewers have returned from this resplendent palazzo renovation in the floating city and unpacked their limoncello and Venetian mask collection, a full account of their trip will be with you. In the meantime, to whet your wanderlust, here's a quick peek inside Palazzo Garzoni in Venice…
In this prime canalside spot away from the crowds, the views to the Rialto bridge from Palazzo Garzoni haven’t changed much since Canaletto’s 1725 painting Grand Canal: Looking North-East towards the Rialto Bridge. The 15th-century palazzo was for most of its life a private residence for the wealthy Garzoni family. More recently, since the 1970s, it was owned by Ca’ Foscari University before its latest reincarnation as luxury rental apartments.
Of the four dwellings, the five-bedroom Piano Nobile is the crowning jewel of the building. Set over two floors, it offers guests a taste of jaw-dropping palatial opulence. Light pours in through vast Gothic windows onto different coloured Carrara marbles, impeccably restored frescoes and Murano glass chandeliers, while TVs are hidden in mirrors and pop out from behind Renaissance paintings.
With a dining room that can seat 20, a stone balcony overlooking the Grand Canal and 500 square metres of space to fill, this feels like a chic Venetian crashpad and party palace, blended into one. But if this level of lavishness just isn’t for you, upstairs the apartments will offer a cosier, more intimate experience, with romantic private terraces and views over the Venetian rooftops. Retro, Seventies-style furnishings and fittings have been crafted especially for the palazzo by local artisans, (bespoke sofas and seating are designed by the architect Giusi Vitale) while sleek contemporary elements are cleverly threaded through.
Whichever apartment you choose, the residence is served by a private pontoon, a gondolier stop and Sant’Angelo’s vaporetto stop, so this really couldn’t be a better base from which to embark on your Venetian voyage.
