Palazzo Garzoni, Venice, Italy
Who? A wedding party, groups of fun-loving friends or a big family looking for an immersive adventure (four apartments sleep between four and 10 people each).
Why? Travelling south-east along Venice's Grand Canal, it's impossible not to spot Palazzo Garzoni-colour and geography at play. Firstly, there's its alabaster-white, Gothic façade, at gleaming odds with the rusty-pink buildings on either side of it. Secondly, there's the palazzo's position, close to the apex of one of the canal's many twists and turns, jutting out into the water ever so slightly in front of its competition. In a city where space is at a jumbled premium, every inch counts.
Inside, the 15th-century masterpiece, balanced, quite impossibly, on wooden piles somewhere underneath the building's foundations and silty water, has been divided into four apartments available to rent individually or all together. They are all stylistically different-one inspired by modern Italian style; the second a sleek interpretation of Alpine-chalet design and have different outlooks (Rialto comes with its own altana, a rooftop plateau of wooden planks typical of Venice). The pièce de résistance is the piano nobile, the palazzo's principal floor and its grandest. In the central, 1,000sq ft living space, a frescoed ceiling balances on caramel-hued marble pilasters; behind them lie modern bedrooms and a chefstandard kitchen. Floor-to-ceiling windows and a balustraded balcony look directly down on the Grand Canal with the rhythmic comings and goings of water taxis, traghetti and cargo boats. On the opposite side, four more palazzi including Tiepolo-stand to attention in front of their master.
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