The quirky one

CASA DE USCOLI

Hotels are all very well, but how about an apartment, so you can pretend you’re a local? The Venetian pied-à-terre of a Spanish lawyer and art collector, this airy B&B has three rooms for rent, accessed via a dingy corridor, a beaten-up door and a shabby staircase. Even if you don’t meet Alejandro Suarez Diaz de Bethencourt, you’ll feel you know him from his eclectic music collection, his scattered books and his avant-garde taste in furnishings (that bright green thing is a chair). It’s worth splashing out £210 per night on the biggest room, with three windows onto the Grand Canal: you’d pay three times that if it was in one of the five-stars up the canal. The other rooms don’t have the view, but are spacious and clean, and the communal areas include a piano room with a Grand Canal balcony. It’s just a few minutes from the Accademia bridge, so you can hop over to Dorsoduro if supertouristy San Marco gets too much.

Rooms from £165, B&B; 00 39 041 241 0669, www.casadeuscoli.com

The plush one

BAUER IL PALAZZO

Venice is hardly short of world-class five-star hotels, but this little-known 250-year-old palazzo gets our vote because of its perfect combination of size (44 rooms, 38 suites) and location (right on the Grand Canal, one minute from a bellini at Harry’s Bar). Recently restored, it is outrageously opulent: each room is individually decorated, with silk brocades, glittering Murano-glass chandeliers and acres of Italian marble. If you really want to push the gondola out, take the Grand Canal Suite 108, which has unbeatable views across the water to the Salute basilica — it’s probably the best hotel room in the world, with prices to match. Whichever room you’re in, you can lounge in the highest rooftop hot tub in town and take breakfast on the seventh-floor terrace.

Doubles from £420, Grand Canal Suite 108 £1,256; breakfast £28pp; 00 39 041 520 7022, www.ilpalazzovenezia.com

The trendy one

DD.724

In a city that specialises in old-fashioned frills, here’s an island of modern minimalism. DD stands for Dorsoduro, a district that’s a bridge south of San Marco and so a shade more relaxed and less touristy. The number, 724, means you’re a gondolier’s punt away from the world-renowned Penny Guggenheim Collection. Despite the great location, it has no Grand Canal views to speak of, but the seven rooms, with their flatscreen TVs, bright decor and stylish sculptures, make a great refuge from all that watery ostentation. Continental breakfast is served in the rather canteen-like communal area. The best room by far is Junior Suite B, on a corner overlooking the pretty Rio Toreselle canal. Have they chucked the baby out with the canal water? You decide. Doubles from £140, B&B, junior suites from £220; 00 39 041 277 0262, www.dd724.it

The cheap one

PENSIONE LA CALCINA

Nothing in Venice is cheap, but this place offers pretty good value for money. Set on the Zattere waterfront, on the quieter side of Dorsoduro, with cooling views of the Giudecca canal, La Calcina is 15 minutes from St Mark’s Square and refreshingly removed from the main tourist drag. The hotel has 29 rooms, all with parquet floors and simple, classic Italian furnishings. Room 32 (£115) is a corner room with especially breathtaking views — not quite budget, but well worth the extra. Breakfast is served on the delightfully tranquil waterfront terrace. If La Calcina is full, try the cheaper Pensione Seguso, next door, where rooms are clean, basic and postwar spartan.
Pensione La Calcina: doubles from £77, B&B; 00 39 041 520 6466, www. lacalcina.com. Pensione Seguso: doubles from £50, B&B; 00 39 041 528 6858, www.pensioneseguso.it ; closed from December to March

The famous one

HOTEL DANIELI

Of all the hotel lobbies in all the world, the Danieli’s has to be the most mind-boggling, decorated with medieval frescoes, marble, gold and works of art brought back from Constantinople by Doge Enrico Dandolo. Not much has changed since the days when visiting 15th-century princes would have been wooed here; latterday guests include Dickens, Wagner and ... Harrison Ford. Right on the Grand Canal, the hotel is a minute’s walk from St Mark’s Square. Early last century, the Danieli expanded into an adjacent palazzo; then, in 1948, a third extension was built. Rooms there might be bigger, but you’re here for the history, so ask to stay in the oldest part of the hotel. Or, if the price makes you balk, at least have afternoon tea to drink in the atmosphere.
Doubles from £523; breakfast £35pp, afternoon tea £20; 00 39 041 522 6480, www.luxurycollection.com/danieli

I want to go

Getting there:fly to Venice Marco Polo with BMI (0870 607 0555, www.flybmi.com ), from Heathrow; British Airways (0870 850 9850, www.ba.com ), from Gatwick; EasyJet (www.easyjet.com ), from Bristol, Gatwick or East Midlands; or Aer Lingus (0818 365000, www.aerlingus.com ), from Dublin. Or fly to Treviso, 19 miles north of Venice, which is served by Ryanair(0871 246 0000,

Alternatively, blow the budget and take the Orient-Express. A one-way, two-day fare starts at £1,430, all-inclusive (0845 077 2222, www.orient-express.com ).

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