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My first time in Venice was just after the pandemic travel restrictions were lifted. Like many, I felt the need to make up for lost time and was eager to get home to Italy after months of forced exile.
Being confined to my apartment made me want to see all the places I’d put off visiting until then, and as an Italian—and travel writer—who had never been to one of the world’s most visited cities, my first stop had to be Venice. Then, the city was empty of tourists, a scene so surreal it made La Serenissima feel like a sci-fi film set. Everything was beautiful, but having the canals and cobbled streets all to ourselves felt as special as it was unfair.
But upon my second visit, when the train pulled into Santa Lucia’s station, I knew I was going to get the real Venice experience, complete with tourist crowds, gondolas, and overpriced drinks. And there it was, as beautiful as I remembered and as busy as you could possibly imagine.
Airbnb
Six-bedroom townhouse with a private garden
I don’t mind mixing with the tourists. After all, even as someone who travels for a living, I am a visitor too. What I did want, though, was to be as immersed as possible in the city, and for that, it meant I had to skip the hotels and find the most authentic accommodation available.
When I stumbled upon Palazzo Cristo San Marco on Airbnb, I couldn’t believe my eyes. A 15th-century palace, located just minutes away from the iconic Piazza San Marco, underwent a complete renovation to create a design-led home that retains its antique charm while ensuring the utmost comfort for its guests. The pictures, though, don’t do this marvelous piece of classic Venetian architecture justice.
To avoid the hour-long queue that was waiting for us at the vaporetto (water bus) station, we decided to brave a half-hour walk from the train station to the house, through Venice’s Cannaregio district. We found the entrance to our accommodation hidden in a small street, which would be hard to spot without knowing it was there. The front gate is designed to resemble an old door, while cleverly concealing a modern, high-tech entry system.
We stepped into a riad-like garden filled with lush pink flowers and greenery, a fountain, statues depicting the four seasons (dating back to the 19th century), and benches for sitting and relaxing. It’s a haven of tranquility that is extremely rare to have in a city like Venice. All around it, the beautiful pink-hued palace that was going to be our abode for the next couple of days looked both lavish and homey.
Palazzo Cristo San Marco is the second ambitious project of architects Anna Covre and Frederic Tubau de Cristo. Their first renovation project in the city, Palazzo Cristo Castello, is only minutes away from their new endeavor, and it’s a 13th-century Venetian palace overlooking the Scuola Grande di San Marco and Basilica Santi Giovanni e Paolo.
This new building is larger, and required a more ambitious restoration that lasted seven years and involved numerous bureaucratic headaches, but the result is a stunning home, tastefully transformed to meet luxury standards without compromising the charm of the historical building.
The palazzo includes six spacious, self-contained suites. The palace can be booked in its entirety, but the apartments are also available for rent separately (you can find them on Booking.com), except during major cultural events, such as the Venice Film Festival, when the building must be booked as a whole.
Before heading to our suite, we had a tour of the premises, starting from the “lobby.” Once there, we understood why the 24/7 concierge had insisted that we come by water taxi. A private boat entrance located on the other side of the building opens directly onto the canal, a luxury that I thought was equivalent to a ski-in/ski-out chalet, which not many properties have nowadays, and made me feel like I was living in a rom-com.
All the suites are spacious, with the smallest measuring 969 square feet and the largest measuring 1,421 square feet. They all include state-of-the-art kitchens, except for the two smallest rooms on the ground floor. These two rooms open directly onto the garden, and were designed as additional rooms for guests booking the suites on the first floor, so can’t be booked independently.
Just when I thought our stay couldn’t get any more luxurious, the elevator opened directly into the landing of our apartment, Suite IX. The suite’s design was a stark but beautiful contrast to what I would expect an old residence to look like. The interior design is modern and sleek, while preserving the traditional Venetian design codes in its details.
The spacious living room features huge windows that open onto the beautiful garden, letting the summer light and the chirping of the birds in, but no chatter from the street, making it feel like you are staying somewhere secluded, despite being in the very heart of the city.
The color palette chosen draws inspiration from Venice, with its distinctive terracotta and pink hues. The soft furniture is velvety and sourced from the renowned Italian fabric producer Rubelli–also responsible for the opulent look of the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express train. The white marble, natural oak, and walnut pieces were all designed by Anna and Frederic and handcrafted by local artisans, while all the glassware, including the outdoor lights in the garden, were mouth-blown in Murano.
Mirrors in every room recall the shape of traditional Venetian windows, while the wooden dividing walls and the window screenings are adorned with the city’s traditional designs. The bedroom featured an exceptionally plush, comfortable bed, enhanced by luxurious Italian bedding. But the star of the show for me was the bathroom, fit for a modern-day Doge. It is a huge room with exposed beams, an original brick wall, and the same opulent furnishing found in the rest of the suite. I always enjoy having a double sink, but it’s even better when it’s made of Carrara marble and comes with Aesop products and a soft, white robe. The walk-in marble shower was stunning, but the icing on the cake was the bathtub—the only place I wanted to be after a long day of walking and exploring in the summer heat.
Each time we ventured out, whether for a romantic dinner at one of the best restaurants in Venice or for one too many Aperol spritzes on a terrace, we couldn’t wait to come back to the comfort of our home away from home. Having a coffee on the balcony on our last morning, I felt like the two days we spent at Palazzo Cristo had been the most amazing break and a much-needed escape from real life—and isn’t that the whole point of a vacation?
