Alle Guglie Boutique Hotel

Alle Guglie Boutique Hotel is at Cannaregio 1523, on the rio terà San Leonardo, in Venice, exactly at the foot of the ponte delle Guglie. This is the street of open-air markets and shops that leads towards the Strada Nova, one of the few areas in the centre where Venetian daily life has not yet moved elsewhere: you buy your fruit at the stall under the hotel's windows. Venice Santa Lucia station is seven minutes on foot, the water-taxi landing is a few steps away on the Cannaregio canal, and the Rialto bridge and Piazza San Marco are about ten minutes' walk. The building is a historic palace, restored so as to hold on to the Venetian character of the house, with exposed beams under the roof and wooden floors, alongside a contemporary design of damask fabrics, brass and dark colours.

How it is built

There are twenty-two rooms, spread over four categories. The Small Double is a compact, snug room, the Classic Double is quieter and lives on the inner courtyards, the Superior Double is the largest and some units look onto the Strada Nova, the Triple has a real third bed and not a sofa bed. All of them are non-smoking, with air conditioning the guest can adjust, heating, a television, a desk and a private bathroom, and the view changes a great deal from one to the next: rooftops, alley or bridge. The service includes a reception open twenty-four hours, room service, daily cleaning of the bathroom too, laundry and luggage storage after check-out. There is a bar, and breakfast is the point the house insists on: organic jams, cured meats, cheeses, grilled vegetables, fresh fruit, baked pastries and savoury tarts. One practical warning: the rooms are on the upper floors and there is no lift.

Wellness and pools, named for what they are

There is no wellness centre here and there is no pool. Neither the official website nor the booking portal declares a sauna, steam bath, hot tub, gym or treatments, and the list of services stops at the hotel side. It is a hotel of few rooms inside a multi-storey Venetian house, without the space for a wet area.

The rules of access

The booking portal writes, in those words, that children are not allowed and adds that there are no cots or extra beds at the property; under the minimum age entry, however, it states that no minimum age is required for check-in, which means only that no threshold in years has been recorded. The official website addresses couples and adults, but publishes no figure at all. This entry therefore records the outright ban on access for minors together with the fact that the property publishes no minimum age in figures: anyone travelling with a seventeen-year-old should ask for written confirmation before booking. Pets are not allowed, and on this the portal is blunt. Arrival is from 14.00 and must be announced in advance, departure by 11.00. Check-in requires a photo ID and a credit card; the balance may be settled in cash, and the Visa-Union Pay card is accepted only for payment and not as a guarantee for the booking.

Who it suits

It suits a couple who want to sleep in the old centre for a fair price, arrive by train and do everything on foot, and who give more weight to breakfast and cleanliness than to shared spaces. It suits less anyone travelling with a lot of luggage or struggling with stairs, because there is no lift, anyone bringing a dog, and anyone looking for a spa, a pool or a garden.