Venice's romantic, boutique beauty

Venice really deserves the word ‘special’. I remember being curious as a child when I learned about this ‘city of water’ in my geography books, thinking that I would see it for myself when I grew up. But when I actually visited, I realised that Venice was far more romantic and magical than I had imagined – from the moment I stepped outside the station, a whole new ‘world’ opened up to me. Maybe that’s how the Venetian explorer Marco Polo felt when he arrived in China in the middle of the 14th century?

I have marvelled countless times at the magic of Venice: over 400 bridges, 150 canals instead of roads, and when I stand on the balcony of the Hotel Pont des Sighs and look down, I find the city sparkling at Christmas time! What some artists wouldn’t give to capture Venice in winter! The glowing waters of Venice shine in the sun like naughty children jumping around indefinitely. There are no cars and the only way to get from one place to another is by boat; the paths on the main island are so narrow and winding that it’s not uncommon to get lost, but I love that feeling because you never know what you’ll stumble upon around the next corner, and it’s so much fun to just go with the flow. Venice is a place where you can feel the unique Italian chic.

As the birthplace of the Renaissance, Italy’s cultural influence has continued from the Middle Ages to the present day. Italy places great importance on the preservation and continuity of culture, providing a constant source of life for art, fashion and design. As a result, a strong artistic atmosphere can be felt in every corner of Venice, and you can imagine that growing up in a place with an artistic atmosphere naturally gives you a superior sense of aesthetics and beauty. So not only are there many stylish Italian luxury brands backing you up, but it’s the little local clothes shops that are a showcase of the national aesthetic – for €10 you can buy a very chic printed shirt that looks better than Versace! If you’re careful, you can get a denim jacket for €15 that you’d have to spend £200 on if it was hung up in a London boutique. As well as the fashionable clothes shops, there are also many vintage cafes tucked away in the streets of Venice, each one decorated to reflect the taste of its owner.

Venice is also where one can dip in to the slow pace of life, notwithstanding the constant flow of toursists, and one of the pleasures is admiring the achitecutre. The real Venetian architecture as opposed to risible imitations around the world.
I gave Venice four days to explore the streets and I would also advise first time visitors to Italy to allow more time for Venice and I’ll tell you why, if you don’t want to walk around.

There is a local Venetian legend, if one is to believe the movie A Little Romance , that if lovers kiss each other under the Bridge of Sighs at sunset, they will be blessed with an eternal love. It’s just the kind of legend one would want Venice to be associated with. I suspect the Venetians aren’t particularly envious of the Veronese and their tired, mawkish and verbose legend of Romeo & Juliet.

The building directly opposite the Bridge of Sighs, Sospiri Bridge Hotel (Hotel al pontedei sospiri), the only hotel with a view of the Bridge of Sighs, is the best place to let go of your cynicism and watch lovers kiss in their quest for eternal love. Who says romance is dead!

This hotel has been on my travel bucket list for a long time, so the first stop in Venice was the Sospiri Bridge Hotel. I followed the crowd from the train station to the boat with a friend who was travelling with me. I thought I was buying tickets only on the boat, but no one checked the tickets until we got off the boat. To be honest, the location of this hotel is not so easy to find, we took the bus 5 stops to reach St Mark’s Square and then followed Google around for half a day before we found the entrance to the hotel. Because its reception is not on the main road, it is on a side road, the hotel entrance is diagonally opposite a small bridge, but there are bridges everywhere in Venice, this is not a sign to find the hotel. The canal in front of the hotel passes through St Mark’s Basilica and the Doge’s Palace, then round the Bridge of Sighs and finally joins the Grand Canal. As such, St Mark’s Square is only a two-minute walk from the hotel lobby. (Of course, it took us 20 minutes to find this hotel from St Mark’s Square the first time, and the navigation didn’t seem to be very useful in this part of the world; we followed it and it almost took us into the river!)

The reception desk is not very big, if you are dealing with a large crowd, the whole lobby(a little plain in comparison to the rooms, but there is still a vintage feel to it – warm yellow lighting and a baroque front desk and chairs.)  can barely accommodate 10 people, not counting one piece of luggage per person, because when we arrived at the hotel and were about to check in, we   had to wait for a family to check out. Two adults and three children plus, their 3 pieces of 28 inch luggage, almost filled up the space in the hotel lobby, and there was only one person at the reception desk. My friend and I decided to stand outside and wait. I noticed that the hotel was surrounded by cafes, restaurants and bars, so I thought to myself that I had found the right place! After dropping off our luggage, we could have afternoon tea at the cafe not far away!

We stayed in the Junior Suite Canal View, which was the only one with a panoramic view of the Bridge of Sighs. The room is 30 sq. m and the first thing you see when you open the door is the baroque carpet (When choosing a hotel, the décor would influence my choice, but overall, distance and value for money would be my first consideration), obviously still used today for particularly luxurious interiors, adding an elegant sheen to the room. The carpet is matched by a neoclassical style sofa, whose main features are exquisite workmanship, presumably Italian, refined and bearing a simple shape; straight lines as the tone, without overly detailed carvings, square as the main body, displaying a pursuit of overall proportional harmony and echoes. An example of what can be achieved when the artist pays attention to rationality and restraint, avoiding complicated carving and pretentious piling.

The sofa is upholstered in warm yellow and light dark green stripes with wrought brocade upholstery. To the right of the room, a romantic 4-poster bed (comfortable, I had a lie-in) and chandelier in authentic Murano glass evoke the costumes of the Venetian carnival: elegant and opulent. The overall space again seeks structural soundness and simplicity of form, so the structure of the chairs in front of the dressing table in the room is placed with emphasis on the treatment of horizontal and vertical lines, emphasising functionality and structural strength. The legs are thick at the top and thin at the bottom, with grooved decorations similar to Roman stone columns, and the ends of the legs are decorated with carvings such as spheres or fruit shapes, which not only reduce the material used for the furniture but also increase the strength of the legs, producing a clear, upright and light aesthetic. The ambience of the rooms is warm in a typically Venetian style: ornate, elegant and retro (and ornate must come first. If it is merely elegant and retro but not ornate, it has nothing to do with the Venetian style. In fact, think of the paintings and frescoes inside the Venetian museums, which are magnificent and imposing.), giving them a warm and calm feel.

The elegant, beautifully marbled bathroom with hydro-massage bath is perfect for relaxing after a busy day. It’s not even the vintage stuff that makes the Canal View Room so special, it’s the unassuming balcony! A round dining table and two vintage chairs are placed on the balcony of the room, with the shutters opening onto the Bridge of Sighs, and it is sitting on the balcony with a coffee, overlooking the crowds of people coming and going on the Bridge of Sighs, and saying hello to the occasional pigeon that stops by the balcony, that is the charming part of the hotel.

Getting up in the morning, with the first rays of sunlight, leaning far back on the Bridge of Sighs and indulging in an Italian breakfast (Cornetto, an Italian croissant, is an absolute must: it’s filled with scrambled eggs and served with Cereali, breakfast cereals, hot milk and Italian breakfast biscotti, made with creamy rice mixture. This was a little sweet, so the room thoughtfully served it with black coffee to go with it) is an experience to be enjoyed slowly, as you plan your itinerary.

Hotels are so easy to catgorise – three star, four star, five stars, before we get in to the frankly garishly opulent and crass and self-agrandising categories of hotels in the Gulf – but in doing so they lose a sense of personality and character. Categories should inspire curiosity and, dare I say, mystery. Hotels should be about deciding whether you want to embark on an much-delayed intellectual pursuit (painting the Bridge of Sighs from your balcony perhaps?), or whether you want to spend time with your children in the room, soaking in the new designs and artwork, trying new cuisines, brushing up on local myths before you venture out; hotels should be about spending a decadent week-end with new lovers, the sight-seeing only an afterthought; hotels should be about second honeymoons (with renewed passion), once the children have left home, indulging once more in experiences that were becoming fading memories and, for the solitary, introverted, introspective traveler, hotels can be a refuge from the ever-encroaching masses and the ever decreasing lack of personal space. For me, the Hotel al pontedei sospiri  is about romance and engendering memories; it’s where couples can let their romantic and creative instincts flow, with the Venetian waters providing soothing sounds.

For the period 23-25 December the price was 198 pounds a night for a Junior Suite with a canal view.