Hotel Alloggi Marinella | Venice for Visitors

The Alloggi Marinella is on the Rio Terà dei Pensieri, a wide tree-lined neighborhood street that's only a couple of minutes on foot from the Piazzale Roma. ("Rio terà" is Venetian dialect for "filled-in canal.")

The reception office is in the main building (the Locanda, or inn) through the doorway beneath the oval sign at left.

Just to the right is a passageway that leads to a large courtyard, where a section called the Alloggi has a handful of "superior" rooms in a two-story brick building next to a canal.

In the photo above, Cheryl is crossing the courtyard from the passage that leads from the street. (Alloggi Marinella's main building, the Locanda, is the yellow structure behind the brick wall at right.)

Our "superior double," room 340, was in the Alloggi annex behind the courtyard.

Rooms in the annex have their own private entrances facing the courtyard. They're more like small apartments than rooms: ours had a kitchenette in a locked cabinet that could be opened for an additional fee.

Room 340 had an entrance foyer that was convenient for parking our luggage. (If we'd been staying at the Alloggi Marinella in inclement weather, we'd have appreciated the foyer's table and chairs.)

This fisheye view of our bedroom shows the beamed ceiling, marble floor, and traditional furnishings.

The door to the foyer is on the right. The bathroom is to the left of the bed, and a door on the left side of the photo leads to a private patio.

The bathroom was modern, with a shower, hair dryer, and a wall radiator that would have doubled as a heated towel rack in cool weather.

One evening, when we were too tired and jet-lagged to sit in a restaurant, we bought a pizza at a nearby takeout place and ate supper outdoors.

If you like cats, the Alloggi Marinella is your kind of place: We saw two neighborhood gatti hanging out in the courtyard, including this white cat that posed for us next to the wellhead.

In nice weather, guests can have breakfast at outdoor tables in a walled patio behind the Locanda. (If it's cold or rainy, breakfast is served in a pleasant room indoors.)

The Alloggi Marinella's breakfast is sparse by Northern European standards, but you won't go hungry: You'll get a jam-filled croissant with your coffee, tea, or hot chocolate, and a buffet table has fruit, yogurt, and Italian breakfast items such as cookies and store-bought pastries.

The quiet, peaceful neighborhood around the Alloggi Marinella is worth exploring.

Just down the street, a walled prison is next door to the deconsecrated church of Santa Maria Maggiore.

One block away, an abandoned tobacco factory is a reminder of the time when this section of Venice was a working-class and industrial area.

Today, many of the old warehouses and other buildings have been taken over Ca' Foscari University and the School of Architecture.

Back on the Rio Terà dei Pensieri, a café-restaurant has outdoor seating in good weather. (It's just a few steps up the street from the hotel.)

Directions to the Alloggi Marinella:

From the Piazzale Roma:

Piazzale Roma sign

1. Exit the Piazzale Roma at the southeast corner, where you'll see the yellow sign above. Go past the public toilets (the brick building on the left in the photo).

Rio Nuovo by Piazzare Roma

2. Just ahead at the canal, turn right and walk past the snack bar to the Tre Ponti (three Bridges).

Hotel Arlecchino bridge

3. Cross the bridge and continue along the canal past the Hotel Arlecchino (which is another convenient place to stay if the Alloggi Marinella is fully booked).

Rio Tera dei Pensieri

4. Turn right at the next street, the Rio Terà dei Pensieri. (It's a wide street lined with trees.)

Hotel Alloggi Marinella sign

5. The Alloggi Marinella is a short distance down the street on your left. It has a façade of brick and yellow stucco, and its entrance is marked by an oval sign.

From the Venice Railroad Station:

1. As you leave the station, turn right and walk past the large regional-government building next door.

2. Cross the modern Calatrava Bridge (a.k.a. the Ponte di Costituzione) to the Piazzale Roma.

3. Bear left and walk along the east side of the square until you reach the public toilets.

4. Follow our "From the Piazzale Roma" directions above.

From the Marittima Cruise Terminals:

1. Take a shuttle bus or a taxi from the cruise ship to the Piazzale Roma. Or, if you don't mind walking a short distance, exit the port and take the inexpensive People Mover elevated tramway to the Piazzale Roma. (The modern glass-enclosed station is just outside the port entrance.)

2. Follow our "From the Piazzale Roma" directions above.

From the San Basilio Cruise Terminal:

1. Take a taxi from the terminal to the Piazzale Roma. Or--less conveniently--cross the small wooden bridge in front of the terminal entrance, where you can take a No. 2 vaporetto to Piazzale Roma from the yellow-and-white ACTV waterbus platform. (You'll need a ticket, which you can buy at a newsstand or tobacco shop.)

2. Follow our "From the Piazzale Roma" directions above.

For more information:

To check rates or book a room, see Booking.com's Alloggi Marinella pages.

About the author:

Durant Imboden photo. Durant Imboden has written about Venice, Italy since 1996. He covered Venice and European travel at About.com for 4-1/2 years before launching Europe for Visitors (including Venice for Visitors) with Cheryl Imboden in 2001.

PC Magazine has called this "the premier visitors' site for Venice, Italy." Over the years, it has helped more than 30 million travelers. For more information, see About our site, our Europe for Visitors press clippings, and our reader testimonials.

Alloggi Marinella Hotel Review

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