Hotel Galleria ★★

A room with a view of the Grand Canal at the Hotel Galleria, Venice

A moderately-priced room on Venice's Grand Canal

The Hotel Galleria has one huge plus going for it: You can fling open your window and look right out onto the Grand Canal and still pay as little as €110 ($150) for the privilege.

(I know: seems like a lot—but not in Venice. In high season/busier periods, the price for that canal-view room can be €170 or more—but that's still a bargain.)

That's what you get—along with antique Venetian styling and breakfast served in your room—at Luciano Benedetti and Stefano Franceschini's 17th-century palazzo at the foot of the Accademia bridge, across a square from the Galleria Accademia.

Seriously: cross the Accademia bridge, turn to your left, and it's right there in front of you, the door just to the right of the cafe with all the outdoor tables.

Of the six rooms with a view, the best are intimate no. 8 with a raised sitting nook set into the curved canal-vista window, no. 10 with its frescoed ceiling, and cheaper (but smaller and bathless) no. 5 on the corner.

Other rooms with partial views overlook the bridge past a noisy canalside café (annoying to anyone hoping to sleep before the bar closes).

Viewless 2 and 4 are also nice, with stuccoed decorations on the ceiling.

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Details, tips, & links

Details

Hotel Galleria ★★
Campo della Carità 878a, Dorsoduro (left at the foot of the Accademia Bridge; it's right there.)
Vaporetto: Accademia
tel. +39-041-523-2489
www.hotelgalleria.it
€€

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Nearby sights, dining, hotels

Sights nearby
★★★ Accademia Galleries (museum)
★★ Peggy Guggenheim (museum)
★ Santa Maria della Salute (church)
★ Squero di San Trovaso (gondola workshop)

Where to eat nearby
★★ Trattoria Ai Cugnai (meal)
★ Enoteca Cantinone Già Schiavi (snack)

More Hotels nearby
RR Hotel Pensione Accademia (premier/splurge)

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Lodging links

Lodging tips

If you're looking for a hotel near a particular sight, just go to that sight's page and, in the sidebar on the right, you'll see a list of all the nearby hotels (with "Reid Recommends" choices preceded by a little RR icon: ).
The Venice hotel tax: As of 2011, Venice began charging a Visitor Tax. This is the city's doing, and it is not a scam (just annoying). All charges are per person, per night, for all guests over the age of 10, and the tax is charged for stays of up to 10 days. (There are discounts: Dec-Jan, 30%; Kids aged 10-16, 50%; Stays on the Lido or other outer islands, 20%; Stays in Mestre or elsewhere on the mainland, 20%.)

The cost breakdown is insanely complicated (varies with official clasification and rating cateogry), but general as of 2014:
- Hotels: €1 pppn (per person per night) per star rating. (So a couple [2 people] staying three nights [2 x 3 = 6] in a four-star hotel [6 x €4 = €24] would pay an extra €24.
- B&Bs: €3 pppn flat
- Apartments, residences, rental rooms: €1.50–€2.50 pppn
- Hostels/religious housing and agriturismi: €2 pppn
- Camping: €0.10–€0.40 pppn
Some hotels have folded the fee into their quoted rates; most properties tack it on as an extra when you check out. Just be prepared.
Book ahead in summer and during Carnevale: Venice is way more popular than the number of beds it has, so while in the dead of winter you can often show up and find a good place to crash easily, the best rooms (and the best-value hotels) are booked well in advance for the summer months and the two weeks prior to Ash Wednesday (when Venice breaks out the fancy dress and masks for its famed Carnevale celebrations).

Same goes (though less so, and more at the chic and high end hotels) during the Venice Biennale art festival and the Venice Film Festival.
Pay extra for A/C in summer: No matter what kind of lodging you pick, if it's summer (a) try to get a room with air-conditioning and (b) even if you can't (or you can but have a hankering for some fresh air) resist the urge to open the windows to your room.

Venice is, I believe, the primary breeding ground for the mosquito population of Southern Europe, and precious few Italian hoteliers have discovered that newfangled invention called window screens. Keep the windows shut, or prepare to be bitten.

(Also, carry some bug spray for those romantic canalside dinners outside. Trust me.)
Avoid Mestre: Any hotels with an address in "Venezia-Mestre" is actually in the dull, modern, industrial suburb at the mainland end of the bridge over to the real, ancient Venice you came all this way to see. Do not stay in Mestre! You'll spend more time and money commuting each day in an out of Venice proper than you will save.