Venice Now: Where to Stay, Eat, Drink and Get Lost

Indagare’s Annie Fitzsimmons reports on her recent visit to the Veneto countryside town of Asolo, where she checked-in at Hotel Villa Cipriani.

Sara Maestrelli, one of the creative forces behind the Violino d’Oro hotel, shares her favorites in Venice.

The Violino d’Oro, opened in Venice in early November, has three entrances, each representative of a different side of the La Serenissima, in which this exciting new boutique hotel makes its home. There’s the glass-paneled door in midst of the bustle off Calle Larga XXII Marzo, a main gondola hub right out front and foot-traffic pulling visitors toward San Marco. There’s the entrance for a watery arrival off Rio di San Moise that leads straight into a stylish salotto, full of red velvet...

Much is written about the over-tourism of Venice, and it is a fact that the more than 4.5 million annual tourists, many of them day- and cruise-trippers who add little value to the city, remain a sizeable problem. But these days a more exciting, hopeful story is unfolding behind the scene. La Serenissima, often described as a place where hardly anything ever changes, is in midst of a cultural Renaissance, with a small but refined group of artists, ar...