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Times
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Times
This is Venice's coolest hotel right now
Every time I look at the vaporettos, ambulance boats and bin boats that plough up and down the Grand Canal, I marvel that Venice, a city of 250,000 people, manages to function. It's beautiful, endless proof of the adaptability of the human race, but it's never been cool. In general, Venice is about as hip as an A-level history teacher. And yet, while I'm eating a plate of gnocchi with ragu for £15 on a terrace opposite the Rialto, I'm somewhere very cool indeed. Venice M'Art occupies the ground floor of the Venice Venice Hotel, which quietly opened a couple of years ago behind the façade of a 13th-century palazzo, the oldest building on the Grand Canal. In the 16th century, Ca' da Mosto became one of Venice's earliest hotels, later hosting Mozart, Voltaire and Byron. By the end of the 20th century, when water breached the ground floor, it was — quite literally — sinking into decay and became derelict. Then, the husband and wife designers Alessandro Gallo and Francesca Rinaldo — by purchasing ten separate apartments over a number of years — managed to buy the palazzo. The couple, who sold their fashion brand Golden Goose in 2017, had grown up in nearby Mestre. They spent millions more shoring up the building before returning it to a hotel. Venice is a city that excels in experiential hotels. But Venice Venice — spread over two different buildings — takes it to another level. Arrive in the evening by water taxi at the Grand Canal entrance and the first thing you'll see is a marble sculpture Mother and Son by Fabio Viale, surrounded by (purified!) canal water and lit by the flickering lights of large white candles stationed on the flight of the 25 steps that lead up to the reception. The rooms — there are just 43 of them — are very fancy indeed. 01 is the only hotel room on the Venetian mainland to have its own private swimming pool. Prosaically named room 35 on the first floor, piano nobile in Italian palazzo speak, has proportions that make its grand piano and a ten-seater dining room table look minuscule, thanks to triple-height ceilings and the vast French windows that lead onto a balcony. This is, at 2,045 square feet, the largest suite in Venice. Mine has frescoes, a terrace and a heart-stopping view, and a poured concrete floor. Venice Venice also houses Gallo and Rinaldo's significant art collection, which includes work by the pioneering artists Christo and Jannis Kounellis. • Italy honeymoon ideas: 10 of the most romantic places to stay A treatment room multi-tasks as an installation by the Romanian artist Victoria Zidaru. The ceiling looks like a giant piece of knitting, but with the linen skeins stuffed with fragrant herbs and dried flowers from her garden, changing with the season. There's also the Bitter Club, with a bar that incorporates speakers. So far, cool but very expensive. Rooms start at £500 a night. Those staying at Venice Venice generally arrive by water taxi at the Grand Canal entrance but coming by foot, crossing the Ponte Santi Apostoli and ducking through an alleyway, gives an entirely different experiential hit. A set of minimart-style turnstiles lead into a shop. Freezer containers from the 1970s have branded M'Art sweatshirts while special edition Golden Goose trainers are showcased in what was once a fridge. The shelves have Bialetti moka pots branded with the M'Art logo and the hotel's own toiletries, in tins that look like drink cans and metal toothpaste-style tubes. 'When the da Mosto family lived here, the ground floor was always a trading area so it seemed appropriate,' says Bianca Bonaldi, who curates the art and the shop. 'Venice is a city that's always been commerce-driven.' • Read our full guide to Venice Which is true, and in the restaurant, the 15th-century bricks now have vast, glorious, black and white photos of the Venice fishermen and vegetable sellers who provide the food while the waiters wear striped gondolier tops and chinos. It seems almost effortless, which — in my experience — means that lots of effort has gone into it. And indeed like nearly everything in the hotel, the uniforms have been designed by Gallo and Rinaldo. Unlike most hotels in Venice, it also allows non-guests to come for breakfast, although this costs £55. Dinner too, which is expensive with dishes starting from £25 for risotto and rising to £67 for filetto di manzo alla Rossini, steak with foie gras and truffle. But lunch is a different matter. Most posh restaurants in Venice close between lunch and dinner, but Venice M'Art has an all-day menu, and compared with most places on the Grand Canal, it's refreshingly good value and delicious. Admittedly, you can spend £25 on a seafood lasagne if you want to, but there are plenty of cheaper options. Most of Venice's five-star hotels are now run by luxury hotel groups. Next year Rosewood will open in what was formerly the Bauer and Four Seasons is taking over the Danieli. In contrast, Venice Venice, from its mad name to the Venice M'Art branded moka pots and sense of individuality, feels gloriously, robustly Venetian. They named it twice, Bonaldi says, because one day Gallo and Rinaldo may open hotels in other cities, so there might be a Venice Paris or Venice London. Even though I'm in the middle of a love affair with this hotel, I hope they don't. • 18 of the best affordable hotels in Venice under £200 a night Anyway, back to the terrace, which is packed with Venetians. It's opposite the Rialto, and word has got around that this is now the city's best terrace. And the best value one. You can order an £8 toasted sandwich with a £5 spritz and feast on the same view Canaletto painted in 1729 (plus the bin boats and the vaporettos). There is no barrier between me and the water; something that took much negotiation with the Venice authorities before being allowed but, with the water lapping inches away from me, the result is magical. 'Since we've opened, only one person has fallen in,' Bonaldi says. 'And he wanted to,' she adds. Perhaps he thought he was being cool. But with its mix of luxury and water-fronted groundedness, it's safe to say that this guest will never be as cool as the Venice Venice Hotel. This article contains affiliate links, which can earn us revenue Sarah Turner was a guest of Venice Venice. B&B doubles from £500 ( Fly to Venice • 18 of the best hotels in Venice
Irish Times
18-05-2025
- General
- Irish Times
I have an almost gluttonous appetite for irony, but this is too rich even for my tastes
Last Monday, at about 8am, part of a terrace of Victorian cottages along the Grand Canal in Dublin 6 – properties which have been listed on Dublin City Council's Derelict Sites Register for just under two years, but which had for decades previously been falling into dilapidation – collapsed into the street. It was a warm and sunny morning, and many Dubliners were making their way along that stretch of Canal Road; according to a report in this paper , an eyewitnesses said the falling masonry very narrowly missed a cyclist and a pedestrian walking their dog. It was, it seems fair to say, sheer dumb luck that nobody was killed or seriously injured. Photographs of the property, taken in the immediate aftermath of its collapse, are startling. Almost the entire front of the house has simply fallen into the street, the narrow footpath strewn with rubble and splintered wood. The roof, the whole terrace of which had been entirely covered with plants, has caved in. The building, over many years of total neglect, had simply rotted away and died. Who is responsible for this? In a direct sense, the owner of the building is responsible. And the owner of the building, it turns out, is the Construction Industry Federation , the representative body of the construction industry in Ireland. According to that Irish Times report, the facade of the rotting building had until very recently been concealed by 'a banner advertising a CIF construction safety campaign.' I will freely admit to having an almost gluttonous appetite for irony, but this is a little too rich even for my tastes. It's hard to see this incident as anything other than a lurid symptom of a disease that is eating away at Dublin from the inside. As beautiful as many parts of the city are, and as vibrant as it can be, Dublin's problem with dereliction has become something like a definitional one: there is no experience of the place that is not marred by the fact of its many empty and unpreserved buildings, falling into states of advanced putrefaction. READ MORE The front facade of an unoccupied cottage in Ranelagh has crumbled and fallen onto the street, obstructing a footpath. Video: Dara MacDonaill 'Good puzzle would be to cross Dublin without passing a pub,' Leopold Bloom famously reflected, in Ulysses, of his infamously bibulous hometown. An equally good puzzle, more than a century later, would be to cross Dublin without passing a derelict building. There's barely a street in the city centre that isn't marred by abandonment and dilapidation, by boarded up windows and grubby, peeling facades. [ Dublin's vacant buildings: 'It's my property, I'll do whatever I want with it' Opens in new window ] This is both an aesthetic and an ethical blight on the urban environment, encroaching incrementally and relentlessly on the experience of those living in the city. And it's a clear and insistent indication of poverty: a poverty that arises not out of a lack of money, but a lack of civic pride and responsibility, among both the property-speculating classes and the political establishment. In fact, it's a form of poverty that arises out of people having too much money. It's true, of course, that some buildings remain empty for long periods because their owners are very elderly and living in homes, or because they are languishing in complicated probate, or whatever it might be. But in many, many cases, such dereliction is a choice on the part of property owners who are wealthy enough to let a property sit vacant year after year, blighting and corrupting the urban environment, as the land it sits on steadily accrues value in the context of a housing crisis (or a seller's market, depending on which side of the threshold you're on.) It takes considerable wealth, that is, to make a city feel so impoverished. [ Land hoarders 'laughing' at local authorities as €20.5m owed in unpaid derelict site levies Opens in new window ] All this dereliction, all these residential neighbourhoods with boarded-up houses and shopping streets with dead and dormant retail units, is a result of a totally dysfunctional attitude toward property and property ownership. On the evidence of Dublin's sheer volume of empty buildings – more than 14,500 homes and commercial units vacant for over four years, according to data collected earlier this year by An Post – the State's view of the issue seems to be that, well, it's a shame, of course, but we can't prevent people doing whatever the hell they want with their own property. But this is deeply antisocial behaviour, of a scale and impact of which, typically, only powerful groups are capable. It's antisocial not just in the sense of the destruction of a shared environment (though it is certainly that), but in the sense that it reveals a deeper carelessness about, and disdain for, the experience of fellow citizens. (There are parts of Dublin, as Hugh Linehan forcefully put it in this paper last February, that feel 'like a city designed by people who despise its inhabitants.') [ Derelict Dublin: Too often, it feels like a place designed by people who despise its inhabitants Opens in new window ] For those who are suffering in various ways from this country's housing crisis – the growing number of homeless, the young (and no longer so young) who have lost all hope of owning their own homes, or of living anywhere close to where they work – these derelict properties amount to a profound insult, like watching someone throw out untouched food when you are convulsed by the pain of hunger. As Rory Hearne put it in Gaffs, his book about the housing crisis, this is a 'viscerally pernicious inequality. Those without access to homes can literally touch and see derelict buildings abandoned because the owners have an excess of wealth and property.' But let's say you don't care about that. Let's say, for the sake of argument, you don't care about people who are living on the streets or who can't afford a home. Let's say that you have somehow managed to exist in such a way that no one you know or particularly care about is detrimentally effected by this apparently very wealthy country's confounding inability to provide affordable housing for its citizens. Even then, you've still got to live in the place, haven't you? You've still got to look at the place. And it's dispiriting, day after day, to move through a city so badly disfigured by dereliction, where you're never quite sure whether a gigantic banner bearing a message about construction safety might hide a facade that is about to collapse on top of you, like a hazardously over-stacked metaphor. We should have more respect for our capital city, and for ourselves, than to tolerate this situation, and those who have created it.
BreakingNews.ie
08-05-2025
- Business
- BreakingNews.ie
Planning application submitted for over 380 apartments in south Dublin
A planning application has been submitted for over 380 apartments in Bluebell in Dublin. Dublin City Council and the Land Development Agency are looking to build beside the Grand Canal. They say it comes after more than a year of extensive consultation with the local community. 150 of the units will be social homes, with the rest going to the cost-rental scheme. The site is located on Bluebell Avenue and Bluebell Road, Bluebell, Dublin 12. The proposed development will consist of: Advertisement Demolition of existing above-ground structures on site, including the existing 36 no. 2 bed maisonettes and the existing community facility known as the Bungalow (which is being relocated within the site), and the construction of a residential development set out in 5 no. blocks, ranging in height from 5 to 9 storeys to accommodate 383 no. apartments, 3 no. community / cultural units and a crèche; The site will accommodate 141 no. car parking spaces, 945 no. bicycle parking spaces, storage, services and plant areas. Landscaping will include a new central public plaza, residential courtyards, and a western linear parkland which includes relocated allotments; The 5 no. residential buildings range in height from 5 storeys to 9 storeys accommodating 383 no. apartments comprising 22 studios, 131 no. 1 bed units, 192 no. 2 bed units (30 no. 2 bed- 3 person and 162 no. 2 bed- 4 person) and 38 no. 3 bed units. The residential buildings are arranged centrally on the site and around residential courtyards at podium and ground level. Balconies and terraces to be provided on all elevations at all levels for each block. The breakdown of residential accommodation is as follows: Block 1 is a 7 to 8 storey building accommodating 80 no. units comprising 1 no. studio, 28 no. 1 bed units, 43 no. 2 bed units, 8 no. 3 bed units. Block 2 is a 6 to 9 storey building accommodating 86 no. units comprising 23 no. 1 bed units, 50 no. 2 bed units, 13 no. 3 bed units. Block 3A/3B is a 6 storey building accommodating 83 no. units comprising 10 no. studios, 43 no. 1 bed units, 30 no. 2 bed units. Block 4A/4B is a 5 to 6 storey building, accommodating 70 no. units comprising 1 no. studio, 22 no. 1 bed units, 34 no. 2 bed units, 13 no. 3 bed units. Block 5 is a 5 to 7 storey building accommodating 64 no. units comprising 10 no. studios, 15 no. 1 bed units, 35 no. 2 bed units, 4 no. 3 bed units They said any person within four weeks from the date of publication of this notice, apply to An Bord Pleanála for a screening determination as to whether the development would be likely to have significant effects on the environment. Dublin City Council said they are now open to submissions or observations in relation to the proposed development, dealing with the proper planning and sustainable development of the area in which the development would be situated, may be made on their website before 23:59pm on June 19th, 2025. You can make a submission about the development here .
Times
06-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Times
Aman Venice hotel review: a palatial stay on the Grand Canal
A n opulent but discreet Grand Canal hideaway for Hollywood royalty — and actual royalty — Aman's Venetian outpost is set in a spectacular palazzo still owned and partially occupied by Italian nobility. Steps from the landmark Rialto Bridge, its 16th-century stucco details, leather wall coverings and swirling staircases shine against sleek modern, minimalist furnishings, while a rare courtyard garden and restaurant overlooks the water. Accessed via boat straight off the city's most famous stretch of canal, this singular hotel oozes Venetian mystique from top to tail; and with snap-your-fingers-and-it's-there service to boot, little wonder George and Amal Clooney chose to tie the knot here in 2014. This article contains affiliate links, which may earn us revenue Score 9/10 With a minimum size of 50 sq m, rooms are ultra-spacious in a city where every square inch counts. Despite occupying an entire multi-storey grand palazzo, the hotel has just 24 rooms, most with Grand Canal views and some with unique original features like gold-painted stucco or frescoed ceilings. Decor is Aman's signature Japanese-inspired minimalism, with neutral cream and taupe hues. Orchids and pedestals of seasonal fruit — three perfect, juicy peaches in July, say — join biscotti, chocolate truffles and nuts as welcome amenities.
