Hotel Concordia by Jamie Dunford Wood

There is just one luxury hotel which overlooks the greatest square of them all - Piazza San Marco - and that's Hotel Concordia.

The facilities

You will feel smug as you sip a cappuccino on your balcony and watch the seething, sweating, struggling hordes below. Value-wise, too, it wins hands-down against the overpriced Grand Canal hotels. The reception areas and small bar and restaurant are cosy and intimate, and the staff is typically Italian.

The rooms

Of the 57 rooms at this luxury hotel, there are two great rooms that both face the square and have little balconies. They are brighter than the others, which tend toward the heavy Venetian gloom, furnished with Venetian antiques. However, for a romantic 'room with a view' in the most romantic city of all, those two rooms would be hard to beat.