Luxury Room, Lake View, Double Bed

A double bed, held from the moment you book rather than asked for at the desk. The wing this room sits in was built to be lived in rather than let, and it shows in the ceiling height. You come in from a corridor of white marble and the room is taller than it is long, which is the wrong proportion for a hotel and the right one for a house on an island: it puts the window where the light is and keeps the room cool in May.

The window is the whole argument. It is not a view through glass, it is a seat cut into the thickness of the wall, fretted marble on 3 sides, deep enough to sit in sideways with your back against the stone. Pichola is just below the sill and there is nothing in between. Boats cross it all morning. In the afternoon the water goes flat and silver, and at about half past 5 the light turns and comes back at you through the fretwork in pieces.

That is the hour the room is for. The walls hold the colour, and you will not put a lamp on, because a lamp ends it. The room is 27 square metres, which is not large, and the window is what you will remember.