Hotel Flora

It is the holy grail of hotel groupies everywhere to be able to find an affordable and character hotel of class in Venice and Paris. Venice is a tougher challenge, but in the Flora there is at least one outstanding candidate. Canals? Who needs them? Japanese tourists on gondola serenades and rising summer odours are here replaced, within a stone’s throw of St Marks and the Grand Canal, with the sound of birdsong and a secluded garden. Family run with extreme care, the open guestbook in the small lobby testifies to some ecstatic customers.

Next to the small bar and breakfast room there is a small, cosy library area with portraits on the walls, leading out to a delightful garden where you can read Byron and think how lucky you are to have wound up here.

Running up the centre of the ancient building is a light and airy staircase, decorated in the Venetian style with painted woodwork; rooms are carefully and tastefully furnished with dark wood antiques, some more ornate, silk or plain walls and rather run down carpeting – well lived in and charming rather than sloppy. Venetian décor can over be heavy and gloomy, but here it works perfectly. However, the bathrooms are tiny.

There is one snag, however. The rooms vary tremendously in size, the best of them beating most rooms you will pay twice the price for in the Danieli or the Gritti, with views over the inner garden or a more ornate formal garden belonging to an adjoining private palace. But you cannot request them – they are all the same price here. They are usually allocated to triples or families, so the only way to get them is to book for three, pay for three, and feign disappointment, after you’ve checked in and firmly unpacked, at your brother’s/sister’s/mother-in-law’s non-arrival.

But even so, the regular sized doubles are not to be sneezed at. Request for one looking onto the garden. And if you don’t luck out, enjoy the hotel and charming staff, the excellent position, and relax - and book again for your next visit to Venice.