Luxury Hotels Atlas / Places / Italy / Lido di Venezia / Hotel Excelsior Venice Lido Resort
Hotel Excelsior Venice Lido Resort
Lido di Venezia, Italy · Iconic Luxury Hotels · Core Luxury
Architect Giovanni Sardi built this Moorish and Belle Époque palace on the Lido's Adriatic shore in 1908. Its grandest chapter began in 1932, when Biennale president Giuseppe Volpi inaugurated the first Venice International Film Festival from its balcony, a tradition the hotel still hosts every year. It remains Venice's only beachfront luxury hotel, a genuine escape from the historic center's canals mere minutes away by water taxi.
- 196 rooms
- Opened 1908
- Rooms from 269 sq ft (25 m²)
- Architect: Giovanni Sardi
- Interiors: Umberto Bellotto; Mariano Fortuny
About Hotel Excelsior Venice Lido Resort
- Giovanni Sardi built this Moorish-Byzantine palace in 17 months, opening in 1908 to a launch party of three thousand as the largest seaside hotel in the world.
- In 1932 it hosted the first screening of the inaugural Venice Film Festival, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde; the festival still uses the house.
- Aristotle Onassis reportedly met Maria Callas here, and Sergio Leone filmed Once Upon a Time in America scenes in 1984.
- J.P. Morgan is said to have remarked in 1912 that visitors to Europe talked more of the Excelsior than of the Doge's Palace.
- The private Adriatic beach is lined with more than a thousand striped cabanas, a Lido fixture since the hotel's earliest years.
History
Hotel Excelsior Venice Lido Resort stands on the Lungomare Guglielmo Marconi, 41, on the Venice Lido — a barrier island separating the lagoon from the Adriatic — where architect Giovanni Sardi's Moorish and Belle Époque palace opened in 1908, its launch party drawing three thousand guests and establishing the Lido as a byword for seaside elegance.
The setting
Hotel Excelsior Venice Lido Resort stands on the Lungomare Guglielmo Marconi, 41, on the Venice Lido — a barrier island separating the lagoon from the Adriatic — where architect Giovanni Sardi's Moorish and Belle Époque palace opened in 1908, its launch party drawing three thousand guests and establishing the Lido as a byword for seaside elegance. In 1932 President Giuseppe Volpi inaugurated the first Venice International Film Festival from its balcony; the festival returns every year, filling the Excelsior's suites with cinema's greatest names. The Doge's Palace is thirty minutes by water taxi, while the hotel's private beach on the Adriatic remains a privilege unavailable anywhere in the historic center. 8 km from Circolo Golf Venezia.
Experiences
- Venice Film Festival red carpet — Each September the red carpet stretches out in front of the hotel during the Venice Film Festival.
- Excelsior beach — Beach with 300 iconic cabanas and Blue Flag water, with the Adriatic in front.
Amenities
- Pool
- Fitness center
- Fine dining
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