#3 in Top 20 Venice for An Anniversary · ★★★★★
Belmond Hotel Cipriani
Giudecca Island, the only hotel pool with St Mark's Square sightlines.
Giudecca Island, the only hotel pool with St Mark's Square sightlines.
"Giudecca Island, the only hotel pool with St Mark's Square sightlines."
Belmond Hotel Cipriani opened in 1958 on the eastern tip of Giudecca Island (the across-the-water island opposite San Marco, accessed only by hotel water-taxi or vaporetto) and remains the most-architecturally-distinctive Venice luxury hotel. Ninety-six rooms and suites across the multi-building complex (the main hotel building, the Palazzo Vendramin annexe, and the Casanova Wing), the upper-tier Palladio Suite and the Dogaressa Suite are the working multi-bedroom anniversary flagships. The asset is the only hotel swimming pool in Venice — an Olympic-size outdoor pool on the Giudecca tip with a direct sightline across the water to St Mark's Square. The morning swim with the St Mark's view is the working anniversary photograph that no other Venice hotel can match. Oro (the Michelin-starred restaurant) is the working anniversary-dinner space; the hotel's three private launches handle the 5-minute crossing to San Marco at any hour. Belmond Cipriani is the right pick for the milestone anniversary where the across-the-water position and the working swimming pool are the explicit assets — the trip's working centerpiece is the morning pool-with-the-St-Marks-view, and the Belmond-brand operating standard handles the working multi-night anniversary trip.
Palladio Suite (the multi-bedroom flagship with garden terrace) or Dogaressa Suite for the upper-tier working option.
Swim the Olympic pool at 7am for the empty-water-with-St-Marks-view photograph. Book Oro for the anniversary dinner; the cliff-side two-top is the working table. Use the hotel's private launches for the 5-minute crossings to San Marco — the working geometry of the Cipriani trip.
Belmond Hotel Cipriani sits within our broader Top 20 Hotels in Venice for an Anniversary list. It scored an aggregate 9.8/10 across the three editorial criteria — competitive against the field but, on an anniversary-specific factors, the angle above is what earned its rank. For the alternatives in the same Venice neighbourhood, see Giudecca Island and adjacent. For a different city entirely, see the related lists below.
If you have already chosen the dates, our editor recommends booking the room twelve weeks ahead. The best suites with the right view orientation go first, and inventory for the popular months is quoted in months, not weeks. Suite-level rooms with private plunge pools or terraces — the ones that earn this rank — are typically the first to sell out.