Where to stay in Venice: the best neighbourhoods and hotels

Piazza San Marco is the city's grand drawing room, and the sestiere around it is Venice at its most theatrical. The golden mosaics of St Mark's Basilica, the pink-and-white Doge's Palace and the Bridge of Sighs are all here, along with La Fenice opera house, Harry's Bar and the designer boutiques of Calle Larga XXII Marzo.

Hotels range from small, characterful palazzi on quiet canals, a few with views of the Bridge of Sighs, to grand five-stars a few steps from the piazza. Being in the middle of everything has a cost: the alleys around the square are rammed from mid-morning, and you pay for the address. But step out at dawn or after dinner and the whole magnificent stage is yours.

East of St Mark's, the Riva degli Schiavoni sweeps along the lagoon in a promenade of grand hotels, vaporetto stops and bobbing gondolas, with the church of San Giorgio Maggiore floating on its island opposite. This is where some of Venice's most famous hotels gaze out over the water, among them a 14th-century palazzo with a rooftop restaurant and others in 16th and 19th-century buildings filled with antiques.

Walk on and Castello quietens into the most lived-in district of the centre, with washing strung between houses and children kicking footballs around the squares. Its eastern end holds the Arsenale, the city's old shipyard, and the Giardini, the gardens that host the Biennale art and architecture shows. It's a fine compromise: a short walk from the piazza, a world away from its crowds.

Across the Accademia bridge from San Marco, Dorsoduro is the city's art quarter and arguably its loveliest corner. The Gallerie dell'Accademia hold the great Venetian painters, the Peggy Guggenheim Collection fills a low white palazzo on the Grand Canal, and the domed Santa Maria della Salute stands guard at its tip.

Its southern edge is the Zattere, a long, sunny promenade facing Giudecca that was made for gelato and evening aperitivo. Inland, Campo Santa Margherita is the student heart of the city, all cheap spritzes and late nights. Hotels are mostly intimate, from an Art Deco boutique with a rooftop terrace to palazzi with gardens on the Grand Canal, and the whole district feels a notch calmer than San Marco.

Cannaregio runs from the train station to the edge of the northern lagoon, and once you leave the busy main drag of the Strada Nova behind, it is the most authentically Venetian of the districts. Long, straight canals such as the Fondamenta della Misericordia are lined with bacari serving cicchetti, Venice's bar snacks, and on warm evenings locals spill out along the water, spritz in hand.

It is also home to the Ghetto, the world's first, where the city's Jewish community was confined from the 16th century and where synagogues still hide behind ordinary façades. Hotels range from intimate palazzi full of character to five-stars with private jetties looking out towards Murano, and evenings here are noticeably calmer than around San Marco.

San Polo begins at the Rialto Bridge, where the fish and produce markets have traded for centuries and the bars around them serve some of the best cicchetti in town. It's a tight knot of lanes and little squares, home to the great Frari church and its Titians, and to some of the most magnificent palazzi on the Grand Canal, one of which now houses Aman Venice, complete with two private gardens.

Santa Croce, next door, is quieter and more practical. At its western end lies Piazzale Roma, the only point in the historic centre you can reach by car or bus, with the train station just across the Constitution Bridge. If you're arriving with heavy bags or leaving on an early flight, staying around here saves a great deal of hauling cases over bridges.

Some of Venice's most extravagant hotels aren't strictly in Venice at all. The long island of Giudecca, across the water from the Zattere, is home to the legendary Cipriani, with its pool and tennis court, and to a vast red-brick former flour mill that is now a family-friendly Hilton.

Further out, whole private islands have been turned into resorts: San Clemente, with a 12th-century church and acres of ancient gardens, and Isola delle Rose, where the JW Marriott has three outdoor pools and a spa. On Murano, a former glass factory has become a hotel. Most run their own boats to St Mark’s, which makes them blissfully peaceful, but every outing comes with a timetable.

The Lido is the long, skinny barrier island that shields the lagoon from the Adriatic, and it feels nothing like the rest of Venice. There are cars and buses, avenues of elegant early 20th-century villas, bikes for hire and, on the seaward side, a long sandy beach lined with rows of bathing huts.

Every September its grandest hotel welcomes the stars of the Venice Film Festival; the rest of the summer belongs to families and Venetians escaping the heat. It makes a lovely base if you want beach days between bouts of sightseeing, with St Mark’s about 15 minutes away by boat.

Mestre is the workaday mainland town at the end of the causeway, and nobody comes for its looks. They come because rooms cost noticeably less, parking is straightforward, and trains and buses cross the Ponte della Libertà to Venice's station and Piazzale Roma in around ten minutes.

Stay near Mestre station or on a direct bus route and you can be on a vaporetto very quickly, and night buses keep running after the trains stop. Just remember what you're giving up: Venice at its most magical, early in the morning and late in the evening, when the crowds have gone home.

If the beach matters more than the Basilica, look east along the coast. Jesolo is a full-blown seaside resort, with a long sandy beach, hotels with private beach areas and big pools, a lively strip of shops and bars, and water parks to keep children busy. Further along, Caorle has a pretty, pastel-painted old town right on the sea, and Bibione sits among pine woods with its own thermal baths.

This is a different holiday from Venice proper: sunloungers, spa afternoons, pool bars and evening strolls along the seafront rather than palazzi and churches, and some hotels offer all-inclusive rates. The canals are an easy day trip by bus and boat, so you can have both, and come home to a beach towel rather than a vaporetto timetable.