Location

Overlooking the picturesque Rio dei Tolentini, three minutes' walk from the car and airport shuttle terminals of Piazzale Roma, where you will also find the ACTV vaporettos connecting all of Venice, and five minutes from the Santa Lucia Train Station, the Hotel Gardena enjoys a privileged position among the 3-star hotels in Venice. In the lively university neighborhood (the IUAV, the prestigious Venice University Institute of Architecture, is 100 yards from the hotel while Ca' Foscari University is only a ten-minute walk away), populated by students and professors who enliven and patronize the shops, bookstores, cafés, and bacari (the typical Venetian taverns) nearby, the Hotel Gardena provides an ideal situation for discovering Venice conveniently on foot.

Following a classic itinerary, a fifteen-minute walk from the Hotel Gardena brings you to the Rialto Bridge, passing by the Frari and San Rocco churches (five minutes from the hotel). We recommend stopping there to admire the Basilica di Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari, in Venice second only to St. Mark's Basilica for its historic and artistic significance. The church houses several masterpieces of Venetian painting and sculpture, such as the altarpiece, Titian's "Assumption of the Virgin", and the triptych of the "Virgin and Saints" by Giovanni Bellini. In addition, you can visit the Scuola Grande di San Rocco. The halls of the School contain the most important cycle of paintings (dating from 1564-67) by Tintoretto, the great sixteenth century Venetian painter. Continuing on past the church of San Tomà, you will pass by the House of Carlo Goldoni, the revolutionary genius of the theater, whose house is today a museum and library. Keep on going: the narrow streets with their picturesque views are dotted with artisan shops and stores of all types, to the delight of shopping fans.

After crossing the vividly colored fruit and vegetable market, before you lies the Rialto Bridge, lined by its characteristic row of shops. A few more steps bring you to St. Mark's Square, where the scene is truly splendid: St. Mark's Basilica, the Campanile, and the arcades of the Procuratoria frame one of the most beautiful piazzas in the world.
For those who prefer the vaporettos, No. 82 departs from Piazzale Roma, three minutes from the Hotel Gardena, and navigates along the magnificent Canal Grande to Rialto in fifteen minutes and to San Marco in twenty-five.

An unusual itinerary, less-traveled and more authentic, is a few minutes' pleasant walk from the Hotel Gardena. On the way to the beautiful churches of San Nicolò da Tolentino and San Pantalon, you cross the lively Campo Santa Margherita with its numerous favorite haunts of university students, pass by a historic boatyard, the Squero di San Trovaso, and arrive at the Fondamenta delle Zattere, the broad walkway which offers you a sublime panorama of the Giudecca Island with the Redentore and Zitelle churches by Palladio. Don't forget to stop at one of the ice cream parlors along the Zattere and soak up the view while enjoying a "gianduiotto," a Venetian specialty made with a bar of hazelnut-chocolate ice cream smothered in whipped cream: panorama and gelato are truly one of a kind!