"If you were to enter The Gritti Palace without realizing it offered board and lodging, you might find yourself looking for the ticket counter. The ultimate grande dame in Venice is every inch a museum of the city’s decorative history, with its silk and damask wall coverings, acres of painted stucco and precious marble, and gilded ceiling beams from which Murano chandeliers hang like elegant jellyfish. It was only in 2013, when it reopened following a $38 million revamp, that The Gritti was able to square the wow of the guest experience with the wow of its antique splendor. (In the 1940s, when Ernest Hemingway penned his Gritti-set novel Across the River and Into the Trees, it didn’t even have en-suite bathrooms). You don’t need to book the airily magnificent Somerset Maugham Royal Suite to feel that you have joined the club; a not-so-modest, entry-level Deluxe Room will do just fine. It too is swathed in stylish Rubelli fabrics; it too feels like Casanova might be hiding in the wardrobe. The Gritti Terrace, with its views across gondola-infested waters to the great Salute church, is one of Venice’s finest breakfast spots, and the late-2023 arrival of executive chef Alberto Fol from Hotel Danieli is a local win. At the deliciously private Bar Longhi, happiness is pulling up a stool at the inlaid marble counter, asking head barman Cristiano Luciani to fix one of his moreish wild fennel martinis, and channeling your inner Peggy Guggenheim. From $850. —Lee Marshall" - CNT Editors
