On our trip to Venice, we stayed at the Hotel Excelsior on Venice Lido. The Lido is an old-fashioned beach resort that every year plays host to the Venice Film Festival.
The resort has an old-fashioned glamour, slightly faded in parts, in the same way that Venice itself is beautiful yet worn by the passage of time.
The Lido stretches along the bottom of the lagoon, with a beach that runs along the Adriatic Sea.
The Hotel Excelsior sits right on the beach, alongside a number of grand old hotels with private sections of the beach where you can hire a cabana for the day.
The building itself is stunning, inspired by Venice’s Moorish architecture. On one side of the hotel, the rooms look out across the Adriatic, while on the other side there are views towards Venice. Our room looked out onto the exotic courtyard at the heart of the hotel.
For me, there were two special things about this hotel. The first was the gorgeous pool with its view across the beach and out to sea. The pool staff were always attentive, fetching fresh towels and helping find a sun lounger if it was busy.
But my favourite thing about this hotel was the private boat launch that carried guests across the lagoon to Venice. Running every half an hour from breakfast until around midnight, the boat launch was a real perk. Travelling on the speedy boats was a great way to see the city.
As with many places in Venice, food and drink in the hotel is expensive, but it’s so easy to cross over to the city that we ate there most nights.
Staying at this hotel made our trip a little more special.