San Marco / Mercerie

Starhotels Splendid Venice

★★★★★

Starhotels Splendid Venice puts you at the dead centre of the city, on the Mercerie, the historic shopping street that winds from the Clock Tower on Piazza San Marco to the Rialto Bridge, and yet the hotel itself is set back on a canal, which gives it a quiet heart and its own private dock where gondolas and water taxis pull up to the door. Part of the Italian Starhotels Collezione group, it is a smart, well-run four-star with a classic Venetian style updated for comfort: fabrics and glass in rich colours, good beds and modern bathrooms. Room categories run from superior and deluxe rooms, some looking onto the canal, through junior suites to a series of heritage suites that can be combined into larger apartments, including a grand suite with two bedrooms and a presidential suite with private terraces. Families have a specific option in the family connecting rooms, and a family programme under which children under sixteen stay free when the adults' rate includes breakfast, a rare and valuable offer in central Venice. The restaurant, Le Maschere, serves Venetian and Italian cooking, the Lounge Bar is open all day with canal views, and the hotel's crowning feature is its altana, the traditional Venetian wooden roof terrace, here turned into a panoramic rooftop bar for cocktails, wine and small plates above the roofs of San Marco. Service is attentive and professional, and the location makes everything easy: you can be at the Basilica at opening time, browse the Mercerie in the afternoon and walk to the Rialto for an evening of cicchetti.

Location logic: the Splendid is about five minutes on foot from both Piazza San Marco and the Rialto Bridge, which makes it one of the most convenient addresses in the city for a first visit. The Rialto and San Marco vaporetto stops are both a short walk away, but the private dock is the hotel's secret weapon: arrive by water taxi from the airport or the station and you step straight into the lobby, with no bridges or luggage hauling, a real advantage for families. The Mercerie are busy by day, so expect crowds right outside, although the canal side of the hotel is calm.

Room craft: book a canal-view deluxe room or a junior suite with a view for the classic Venetian outlook; inner rooms are quieter but darker. Families should reserve the connecting room option early and take a breakfast-inclusive rate to benefit from the children-stay-free programme; larger families or groups can combine heritage suites. Make time for a drink on the altana at sunset, and note that the city's per-night tourist tax is charged on top of the room rate.

Who it suits: first-timers, families who want a central base with space and a good deal for children, and couples who like a polished hotel with a rooftop bar. Compared with the Danieli or the Gritti it is more moderately priced and less grand, but it offers more of the comforts of a modern hotel than the small family-run places like the Flora. It is less suited to travellers who want a quiet residential neighbourhood; for that, look at Dorsoduro or Castello.