Ca' di Dio

Since 1272 the house on Riva Ca' di Dio has taken in pilgrims on their way to Jerusalem, then women in need, then the elderly, and since 2021 anyone who books. Jacopo Sansovino rebuilt it in the sixteenth century: long and pale along the waterfront, three storeys high, with a row of chimneys on the roof. Across the water, San Giorgio Maggiore puts up its dome and campanile for the rooms on the lagoon side. Patricia Urquiola, restoring it, kept to the plan of the old cells, so no two rooms are alike, then dressed them in green-flecked walls and Murano glass, down to a floor lamp in amber and bottle green. Behind the front the house turns inward. In the main courtyard the original stone wellhead stands on the lawn, outnumbered now by wicker chairs, and breakfast is at Essentia, in the green of the cloister.

Recommended for couples who come to Venice for its art and would rather walk to it. The Arsenale is under 300 metres from the door and the Giardini della Biennale about 850. St Mark's Square is ten minutes on foot. When the walking is done, the hotel will arrange a gondola through the canals or a botanical trip out on the lagoon, and Pura Spa has a sauna and a Turkish bath for afterwards. Vero faces the lagoon and cooks Venetian food by the season; Alchemia, in the palazzo's historic rooms, pours cocktails and Venetian wine across a dark marble counter. The suites to ask for are the two Altanas, each with a wooden Venetian deck on the roof, from which, on a clear day, the view gets past the chimneys and goes on to the Dolomites.