The Best Hotels in Italy: 20 Editor-Vetted Stays Around the Country

The journey is as important as the arrival, they say, and when applied to the home and garden of earthly delights that is Hotel Cipriani, it means something. A vintage motor launch in varnished cedar, the last word in 1970s Venetian nautical chic, awaits to whisk you from the terminal or the crowds of St. Mark's Square to the hotel, where charming doormen greet guests with a personal flourish.
Unlike Venice's other luxury hotels that have been poured into existing historic palaces, fighting against a corset of strict regulations, Hotel Cipriani was custom-built in 1958 with plenty of elbow room, on three acres of land on the Giudecca, then owned by Guinness nobility. The daughters, Honor and Brigid, were fans of Harry's Bar, a small paneled den in the heart of Venice, and invited its owner, Giuseppe Cipriani, to think big and create a hotel in partnership with them. The result is a place that is still unrivaled for that spirit of urbane hedonism; for generous and attentive service that never bends; for an easy atmosphere of peace and sanctuary alongside a sense of clubhouse discretion and rarefied exclusivity.
In the summer, when the canals in Venice get stinkier, Hotel Cipriani offers more than a breath of fresh air. The grounds are large enough for tennis courts, a kitchen garden, a vineyard, and a spa within the orange blossom-scented Casanova gardens, where the eponymous lady-killer wooed the neighboring nunnery. They are a haven for birds and Roberta the tortoise, who, unfortunately, hasn't been seen since a recent acqua alta. Meanwhile, around the showpiece swimming pool, the beating heart of the hotel (and a happy accident of scale, because the architect got his meters and feet mixed up), sunbathing is raised to the level of theatre, with endless opportunities for people-watching around the travertine-marble terrace. Here, Hollywood moguls cement film deals in loud voices while Venetian aristocrats settle into cabanas for the day, spraying complimentary Evian like Chanel No. 5 and addressing the staff as extensions of their family.
Sadly, the barman Walter Bolzonella, famous for the Buonanotte cocktail he dreamed up with George Clooney, is retired. The capable Riccardo Semeria has stepped into his shoes, while Riccardo Canella, multi-Michelin superstar chef of Noma fame, takes the culinary helm. He understands that the essence of Italian style is to keep things simple, natural, and familiar, yet still fresh and inventive. This is the hallmark of the Hotel Cipriani. Others have tried to emulate its timeless Italian chic. But glamor is an atmosphere, something harder to bottle than an Acqua di Parma scent. It is synonymous with this hotel, with its to-die-for view of the Doge's Palace and St. Mark's, sequestered on the edge of an insignificant island on a lagoon lapping the Adriatic Sea. —Catherine Fairweather

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