What a find! (Hotel Locanda Herion, Venice)

Member Name: grahamt

Product:	Hotel Locanda Herion, Venice
Date:	08/07/04 (124 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Stylish, Quiet location, Very friendly

Disadvantages: A little away from the sights

We both needed a break. Venice seemed the ideal destination. Suitable and reasonably priced flights from Gatwick to Marco Polo with British Airways was identified so all we needed now was a hotel.

Venice, being an International tourist destination, is not short of hotels. Many list their closeness to the popular sights amongst their attributes but of course those benefits usually come at a price. Even these benefits are of dubious value. If you are close to the hotspots then of course you are also in the thick of the tourist maelstrom. Would you prefer convenience or a good night's sleep?

Amongst all those hotels there are bound to be good ones, indifferent ones and bad ones. Without any knowledge, how to make sure you get a good one? First of all visit your friendly local travel agent and pick up a few brochures.

The hotels listed in the brochures will normally be of dependable quality. You can usually rely on travel companies ensuring that their reputations are not sullied by poor accommodation. Also you get a guide as to prices.

The Bridges brochure listed several hotels in various locations across the islands that constitute Venice. All seemed reasonable. The prices were £365 an upwards per person for a three night stay. That seemed a bit steep but at least we now knew what we were aiming for.

Then, of course, you also search the Internet! Several hotels turned up on Google. Amongst them we came across the Hotel Locanda Herion. It looked nice. It was in a reasonable location though not really near the tourist traps but close enough to public transport.

To be fair, Venice really isn't that big a city. You can walk across it at a brisk walk in half an hour. And we love to walk.

We asked for a price for our stay. The price
they gave us worked out at about £40 per person per night, bed and breakfast. For Venice that looked like a very attractive proposition. The pictures looked nice as well but then pictures can deceive.

We did a search on the Internet for reviews and came across a couple that seemed to suggest that previous guests had enjoyed their experience there. We accepted their offer.

Our journey to Venice went without incident. Marco Polo airport is situated on the coast of the mainland, just across the lagoon from the islands that include Venice. Venice is joined to the mainland by two parallel bridges, one for trains and one for road vehicles.

There is no traffic in Venice other than what travels by water. Any road traffic arriving on the island via the bridge has to park at the end of the bridge or return. That traffic also includes buses and coaches. The local bus company ACTV, runs to and from the bus station here. ACTV also run the water buses.

You can get an ACTV bus (No.5) from the airport to Venice. We decided to arrive by water. The Alilaguna Water Bus runs from close to the airport to St Marks Square with a number of stops on the way. We felt this would be a good way to start our visit.

Unfortunately we were not familiar with the route it would take but knew that we could get from St Marks Square to the hotel without much by way of problems and enjoy the sights and lunch on the way. Had we known we would have got off at the second stop (Fondamenta Nuove) where we would have been just 10 minutes from the hotel.

Hotel Locanda Herion is to be found in the Cannaregio district of Venice. Venice is split into dozens of islands by the various canals, of which the most well-known is the Grand Can
al. This effectively divides the main island into two sections, North and South as it winds its sinuous way from close to the railway station to just short of St Marks Square.

Cannaregio occupies a district of the Northern part of Venice, starting at the railway station. Here you will find the Church of Madonna dell'Orto and Tintoretto's House as well as other notable sights, such as the houses of Marco Polo and of Casanova. There is also a lot of good shopping to be had as well as many restaurants and bars.

A leisurely stroll from St Marks Square, including the much anticipated break for lunch and our first ride on one of the city's water buses to the St Marcuola stop finally brought us to Cannaregio along the Rio terra S. Leonardo thoroughfare.

Our first problem was, where is the hotel? We had an address but we soon discovered that the properties in Venice are uniquely numbered, not by road, or should I say pavement, but by district. We were looking for 1697A. It appeared to be where a gap between the buildings lead into an alley. Then we saw a small sign on the wall. We followed it a few yards to a small courtyard and there in the corner was the door to our hotel.

Actually, at the moment the door is hidden behind a temporary structure that occupies most of the centre of the courtyard. This turned out to be a temporary workman's store to house the tools and materials for repair work being carried out in the area.

The entrance to the hotel is just a simple unobtrusive door fronted by a metal ramp to enable wheeled luggage to easily be pulled inside.

Another feature you immediately notice, and these are also found all over Venice, is a couple of metal channels fixed to each side of the bottom of the doorway. These turn
out to be guides for barrier boards that are fixed in place when floods are threatened so as to prevent water entering the premises. Fortunately this wasn't needed whilst we were there.

Immediately we were inside we were delighted to find that the pictures we had seen hadn't lied. The hotel is spotlessly clean and well decorated. Indeed, it is clear that the whole hotel has undergone recent wholesale renovation. The outcome is impressive.

The hotel has only 12 rooms. We were assigned Room 12. This is on the second floor and overlooks the internal courtyards, away from public gaze. There is no lift so the hotel would probably not be suitable for a disabled person.

The second floor rooms do not have access to the courtyards but the first floor one do appear to do so. The courtyards were also undergoing renovation during our stay and will undoubtedly be a real asset when the work is finished, which is sure to be very soon. The work did not disturb us.

The hotel has stone floors throughout, clearly an essential where flooding is a fairly regular occurrence. This includes the bedrooms so, a little cold on the feet when getting out of bed in the morning but otherwise attractive. The bedrooms have period style furniture that entirely suites the venue.

The bathroom has all modern fittings and is a decent size, a change from the poky bathrooms we've had to put up with in hotels at twice the price or more. Ours had no bath, only a shower but then, we usually shower anyway so no problem there.

If there was one complaint it was that, as it was not winter, no heating was on. This also applied to the towel rack. The consequence was that towels usually didn't dry out thoroughly during the day, not helped by the staff's tendency to neatly fold them when servicing the room!

The bedroom has a TV but
without anything other than Italian stations. We found other ways to occupy ourselves. Our bed was a little "noisy" but, as the hotel was not full we probably didn't disturb too many people!

No coffee or tea making facilities are provided in the rooms. Indeed, there is a sign requiring no cooking in the rooms! We felt that our small travel kettle probably didn't fit this prohibition but we did keep it out of sight when we were out.

We got a good night's sleep throughout our stay. The area is quiet at night, aided by the hotel's situation off of the main thoroughfare and our room's location overlooking the inside of the property. We were only woken by the bells of one of the many, many churches, which started up at 7.00 in the morning.

The hotel has no restaurant. However, there are dozens of good places to eat throughout the area so this is not a problem. There is a small breakfast room complete with "Mood Music" to break the silence but not to cause annoyance. Breakfast is typical Continental style, with croissants, yoghurts, cheese, meats plus coffee and tea. This made a pleasant change from my usual Weetabix!

The staff are very friendly and very helpful. They are clearly proud of their hotel, and rightly so. We greatly enjoyed our stay. This is a hotel to highly recommended and, at the price, is pretty well unbeatable. If you are visiting Venice you will struggle to find better, except at very much higher prices.

30121 VENEZIA Italy
Cannaregio, 1697/a
Tel: +39 041 2759426/2759422
Fax: +39 041 2756647
eMail: info@hotelherion.com
Website: www.hotelherion.com

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