Ca' Amadi - Staying at Marco Polo's Place in Venice, Italy

During our trip to Italy in last July, we spent several busy and interesting days in Venice. Our base of operations was a very comfortable, large, air-conditioned room at Ca' Amadi (http://www.caamadi.it/en/), a bed and breakfast that was part of a palace that was Marco Polo's residence in the late 13th and early 14th Centuries. Our room overlooked a picturesque canal called the Rio Fontego dei Tedeschi. This B&B clearly deserves the many wonderful reviews on Trip Advisor (http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Review-g187870-d275958-Reviews-Locanda_Ca_Amadi-Venice_Veneto.html). I highly recommend it.

Looking at Ca' Amadi from a Nearby Bridge

View from Our Room

Ca' Amadi is located an easy 5-10 minute walk from the Rialto bridge over the Grand Canal. Of course, we had to make this walk with our luggage when we came from the vaporetto (water  bus) stop near the Rialto Bridge.

The staff of Ca' Amadi - the manager Valentina, Nicolo and Alberto at the front desk, and the breakfast cook were all very nice. Alberto was extremely helpful in answering questions about various activities.

One of Our Two Sets of Beds

The two large beds in our room for four were comfortable and the room was nicely outfitted. One of the large beds was two smaller ones pushed together.

The breakfast had a nice variety of fruits, juices, yogurts, cereal, cold cuts, coffees, breads and pastries, etc. The cook would make delicious bacon and eggs to order. The one complaint I had about the breads and pastries is that they were commercial and uninteresting, in contrast to nice bakery/homemade pastries I have had at similar B&Bs elsewhere in Italy.

Another complaint is that the WiFi signal in our room was often very weak and unusable. However, I could go out into the reception area and receive a strong signal there.

The price of our Family Room for Four with Canal View was €265.00 ($334 at the exchange rate then) for the first night, a Saturday night. The next two nights were €236.55 ($298) per night. The room tax was only €5 per night in contrast to a typical American hotel tax that would have been around 15%, This was also the height of the summer tourist season.

Rio Fontego dei Tedeschi, is an interesting name. It means, "Canal of the Warehouse of the Germans." It refers to a large building that is located at the intersection of that canal and the Grand Canal. The building was the HQ of German merchants in an earlier day. In the Venetian language, "Rio" is the word used to refer to canals other than the very large canals like the Grand Canal. (Many visitors do not realize that the Venetians have their own language (not dialect), that they speak in addition to standard Italian.)

One interesting experience we had was that the route of the gondola ride we took passed right under our hotel room. That offered us a very different perspective.

Several times, when sitting in our room with the windows open, we could hear passing gondoliers pointing to Ca' Amadi and mentioning it had been Marco Polo's home.

Anyone who is staying at Ca' Amadi and is interested in a close place to have delicious gelato should try L'Alta Gelateria on nearby Salizada Fontego dei Tedeschi. I loved the peach gelato.