Belmond Hotel Cipriani ranks #29 on our 2026 list of the best honeymoon hotels in the world. The case below explains why — the hotel itself, the standard it operates at, what it does specifically for couples on a milestone trip, and the alternatives we tested it against.
“On Giudecca, away from the crowds, with private gardens, an Olympic pool, and a private launch to San Marco that reframes the city as something you visit at your convenience.”
The hotel itself
Three landscaped acres on Giudecca, the only outdoor swimming pool in central Venice, 96 rooms, and the five-minute hotel launch back to St. Mark's. Built in 1958 around the idea that Venice is best approached by water.
"The hotel that taught the rest of Venice what a luxury hotel could be when the proposition includes a garden, a pool, and an island. Sixty-seven years on, the Cipriani's case is unchanged: arrive by water, stay in the garden, and treat San Marco as a five-minute commute."
Hotel Cipriani opened in 1958, the project of Giuseppe Cipriani — the founder of Harry's Bar in San Marco and the inventor of the Bellini cocktail and carpaccio — together with the Guinness family of London. Cipriani's argument was that Venice's existing hotels (Danieli, Gritti, Bauer, Excelsior on the Lido) were all locked into the constraints of historic palazzo footprints, and that a Venetian luxury hotel could mean something entirely different if you began with a clean site, three acres of land, and the lagoon as the front garden. The site he chose was the eastern tip of Giudecca, the long narrow island south of the historic centre, looking directly across the Bacino di San Marco to the Doge's Palace and Piazza San Marco. The hotel passed to Sea Containers in 1976, then to the Belmond group in 2014, then to LVMH (which acquired Belmond in 2019). It has been in continuous operation since opening.
Why it works for a honeymoon
A city honeymoon is the riskiest format and the one that pays off the most for the right couple. The hotel needs to do what a destination resort does — give you the reason to stay in — without losing the case for the city outside. The best urban honeymoon hotels have the Michelin restaurant inside the building, the spa that erases the morning's flight, and the staff that get the table at the city's hardest restaurant for tonight.
Belmond — the LVMH-owned descendant of James Sherwood's Orient-Express Hotels — runs the most decorated portfolio of trains, riverboats, and grand-dame heritage hotels in luxury. The Cipriani, the Splendido, Caruso, Sirenuse, the Eastern & Oriental: every Belmond is a heritage building they restored rather than built. For honeymoons that means a kind of romance the new hotels can't manufacture: the rooms have history, the staff have tenure, and the bar at midnight has the right people in it.
There are 96 rooms and suites in total: 80 in the principal hotel building (a low-rise, four-storey structure that runs along the lagoon-facing edge of the property) and 16 in the Palazzo Vendramin annex, a 15th-century palazzo that the hotel acquired and restored in the 1990s. The Vendramin suites face directly onto the Bacino di San Marco — the most-photographed view in Venice from a hotel room — and come with private butler service. The principal hotel building combines lagoon-facing, garden-facing, and pool-facing rooms; the largest signature suite, the Palladio Suite, runs over 200 square metres with a private terrace looking at San Giorgio Maggiore. Rooms have been refreshed at intervals — the most recent significant programme by interior designer Adam D. Tihany in the 2010s — without disturbing the property's mid-century Mediterranean character.
The pool is the unrepeatable amenity. It is the only outdoor swimming pool in central Venice, set in the middle of the property, surrounded by clipped hedges and the gardens that have given the Cipriani its identity since opening. The water is heated salt water; the pool runs from approximately April through October. Other amenities at the property scale are essentially unique in the city: tennis courts (the only ones at any Venice hotel), the Casanova Spa with hammam and a small indoor relaxation pool, and the Cipriani's signature kitchens — Oro (one Michelin star, contemporary Italian), Cip's Club (the lagoon-facing brasserie, with the Salute and the Doge's Palace as the view), and the Pool Restaurant for daytime service. The hotel runs a complimentary five-minute launch service to St. Mark's Square, on call until 1am; for late-night returns, a private water taxi from the hotel pier handles it.
Where it ranks against rivals
For a 2026 honeymoon at this level, the most direct comparisons are Grace Hotel, Auberge Collection in Santorini (#28 on this list), Six Senses Fiji in Fiji (#30 on this list), Il Sereno Lago di Como in Lake Como (#27 on this list). Belmond Hotel Cipriani earns the higher rank for one or two specific reasons we explain in the verdict above. The other properties are not lesser hotels — in some cases the answer for your particular trip is the runner-up, and the city-specific page below has the full local ranking.
Practical: getting in
Address: Giudecca, 10, 30133 Venezia VE, Italy. Honeymoon-suited categories book six to nine months ahead in shoulder season, twelve months ahead in peak. The full review at the hotel page has current rates, room categories worth paying up for, and the dining and spa programmes worth booking pre-arrival. Use our honeymoon occasion page for the broader context.