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Dorsodoro or Castello apartment choice in Venice

I have a question about neighborhoods in Venice.

We cannot decide between two good options of where to stay in Venice — we are renting an apartment for five nights.

One option is in the Dorsodoro neighborhood located around here: https://maps.app.goo.gl/ArC2WPXzjrqpi6E16?g_st=ic

The other is in Castello located around here:
https://maps.app.goo.gl/e1ybnwfTMJ1GL6zs6?g_st=ic

The Castello one is a bit cuter with personality and has a roof terrace to sit on with a view but the other one in Dorsodoro is also nice except no terrace and more generic looking. We would ideally like to stay somewhere that has cute restaurants and shops nearby but isn’t crazy busy and packed with tourists at all hours. We heard Dorsodoro was more fun but not sure. Do you have any preferences between the two neighborhoods of which would be better to stay? Should I not be swayed by the cute apartment because we won’t be spending much time there anyway? (It’s for five nights)

Posted by
316 posts

Several years ago we stayed in a hotel in Castello. According to your link, the hotel we stayed in, is a 4 minute walk to your proposed apartment. We enjoyed that area a lot. We have never stayed in Dorsodoro so I can not speak about staying there.

Posted by
1297 posts

For me, it would be Dorsoduro. The area around Campo Margerita/San Pantalon/Frari is great. The Dorsoduro apartment is not far from the San Toma vap stop with no bridges, also there is the San Toma traghetto to the San Marco side of the Grand Canal.

Posted by
560 posts

Both locations are about 5-6 minutes walk from a vaporetto station with almost no bridges.

The apartment in Castello is closer to the tourist hot spots. I remember when I was taking photos of San Giorgio dei Greci (I adore this church from the outside) in February, the area was quite busy.
But the vaporetto station San Zaccaria is having much more possible destinations to go if I remember correctly.

Dorsoduro is more relaxed and I would go for that in case I would like to spend some more quiet days in Venice. Important for me would be that only a few vaporetto stops away is Mercato Rialto, where I would buy food every day when it's open :-)

Posted by
7939 posts

You might want to consider how apartment rentals have squeezed out full-time residents of Venice and changed the character and economics of the city.