Venice
Italy


The Experience

Locating lodgings of a quality between Venice's two extremes--the internationally known names like Cipriani and Danieli and the multitude of modest Days Inn equivalents--can be a challenge. That's why the Luna Hotel Baglioni, just off the Grand Canal and within sloshing distance of the Piazza San Marco, is such a find. You get, at least with the Luna's larger rooms, nearly as much comfort as you would at those grand palaces, but without the seriously inflated prices--a superior double at the Luna cost about two-thirds the price of the equivalent at the Danieli.

The Rooms

The hotel claims to be the oldest in Venice (c. 1400s), and the public rooms look suitably his-toric. The narrow, high-ceilinged lobby is awash with peach marble and gilt furniture and an-chored by a frothily Baroque fireplace. The bedrooms, however, vary greatly. The suites and lar-ger doubles have a similar period grandeur, intensified by silk-paneled walls and the expected (in Venice) Murano-glass light fixtures; the smaller doubles and singles can be quite cramped. How-ever, even their bathrooms (complete with bidet) are decent sized and covered with marble from floor to ceiling. Very few of the rooms have views of the Grand Canal, but from all of them you can hear the Campanile's majestic Marangona bell toll midnight.

The Service

The staff members are correct, but not overly warm--a side effect, perhaps, of the fact that the hotel has long been offered as one of the higher end options in airline packages (currently, both Delta and Continental airlines are listing it). If you're someone who doesn't need much hand-holding, you probably won't miss being fussed over. You can just come and go without feeling monitored--though you still do, even in this age of cardkeys, have to turn in your key (a heavy, tasseled affair) when you go out.

The Highlights

Although its Canova restaurant is well-regarded--traditional regional dishes like liver and onions or risotto with radicchio di Treviso are served in two wood-paneled rooms--the selling point of this hotel is its location. Directly to the east, across a small canal, lies the Gardinetti Reali (think quiet greenery). To the west is a tiny piazza pretty much bypassed by the ceaseless conga line of tourists trailing from the Accademia to the Rialto Bridge to San Marco. Except, that is, for those Hemingway pilgrims looking for Harry's Bar, which is down at the end of the block. The best reason to stay here? In the evening, when the day-tripping hordes have left the city, you can leave the Luna and in less than 15 seconds be walking through the arcaded entrance to the Piazza San Marco, blissfully empty and all yours.

-- Chris Ryan

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