A candy-pink palazzo on a quiet Venice canal has become the brand's boldest hotel yet. The Orient Express Venezia opened after an eight-year restoration of Palazzo Donà Giovannelli, a 15th-century noble home in Cannaregio, with Paris-based designer Aline Asmar d'Amman at the helm. The result is about as subtle as an opera climax — and that's clearly the idea.
The building itself does a lot of the heavy lifting. It's a rarity in Venice: a palazzo with double frontage onto two canals, stuffed with original frescoes, mosaics and gilded interiors from its centuries as an aristocratic residence. The hotel layers on maximalist flourishes — custom fabrics from Venice's storied Bevilacqua weaving house and hundreds of chandeliers blown on Murano. Common spaces read like a stage set, complete with frescoed ceilings, a gilded ballroom and a showstopping octagonal staircase.
There are 47 rooms, but the six signature suites on the piano nobile are the ones to book. They run up to 1,560 square feet and each has its own character: the Colori Persi suite plays on the faded, sun-worn hues that define the Venetian palette, while the Cherubini Suite is built around an original frieze by Sebastiano Santi and a monumental 1950s chandelier designed by Carlo Scarpa.
Food and drink cover the expected ground with some personality. Heinz Beck runs the fine-dining restaurant; La Casati, the all-day option, honours the eccentric Marchesa Luisa Casati, who once owned the palazzo (and whose later home became the Guggenheim Venice). The art deco Wagon Bar tips its hat to the company's railway heritage.
The smartest thing about the hotel, though, might be where it isn't. Venice's luxury stalwarts either sit on the crowded waterfront or require a boat trip to Giudecca. This one hides in Cannaregio, walkable to the main sights yet easy to miss entirely — and a short water taxi from the rail station, where a new fleet of Orient Express sleeper trains is set to arrive. Arrive by train, sleep in the palazzo: that's the playbook.
For travellers, this is a genuinely different take on the five-star Venice stay: grand, theatrical and central without being in the thick of the day-trip crush. If you'd rather wake up under a fresco than on a busy quay, Cannaregio just became the address to beat.
