PRICE:
Frommer's Very Highly Recommended

This pensione is beloved by Venice regulars. You'll have to reserve far in advance to get any room here, let alone one overlooking the breakfast garden, which is snuggled into the confluence of two canals. The 17th-century villa is fitted with period antiques in first-floor "superior" rooms, and the atmosphere is decidedly old-fashioned and elegant (Katharine Hepburn's character lived here in the 1955 classic Summertime). Formally and appropriately called the Villa Maravege (Villa of Wonders), it was built as a patrician villa in the 1600s and used as the Russian consulate until the 1930s. Its outdoor landscaping (a flowering patio on the small Rio San Trovaso and a grassy formal rose garden behind) and interior details (original pavement, wood-beam and decoratively painted ceilings) still create the impression that you're a privileged guest in an aristocratic Venetian home from another era.

Copyright: Excerpted from Frommer's Northern Italy, 4th Edition, (c) 2008, Wiley Publishing, Inc.

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