Ca Sagredo, Venice, Italy

The Grand Canal in Venice was once like a royal thoroughfare, lined with dozens of gracious palazzi, palaces and stately homes of the great Venetian families. Who knows how many of these buildings still remain in the city.

This palace, now hotel Ca'Sagredo, was originally owned by the Morosini family and was purchased at the start of the 18th century by the Sagredos, a noble family who had lived in the Santa Sofia district for centuries.

The façade onto the Grand Canal is proof of the Byzantine origin of the building, which was altered several times in subsequent centuries.

The original ground floor with the doors leading onto the water and the first floor with its tall arch windows topped on slim pillars, were completed in the 15th century by the addition of second floor, which has tracery frieze around the middle mullioned windows of the Portego or central hall.

From the outside it is breathtaking, with its lavish pink façade and view over Venice, over the Grand Canal.

Leaning majestically on the banks of the Grand Canal and dating back to the 15th century, the Palazzo has been declared a National Monument. Amazingly, even after five centuries, it preserves the untouched beauty of an ancient noble residence. The ballrooms and the rooms are home to important artworks, including paintings by the most representative Venetian painters of the 17th and 18th centuries, such as of Sebastiano Ricci, Giambattista Tiepolo, Niccolò Bambini and Pietro Longhi.

Gondolas still glide by and water laps the walls, but today, at water level, the discreet restaurant offers a glimpse of what it may have been like to live and dine here as members of European aristocratic families. The food makes use of Venice’s superb seafood, and the formal and attentive service might just fool you into believing you have slipped back in time. Or that you actually do have royal blood!

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