Antico Panada

2 minutes walk from San Marco. Our room is lovely, though the stairs and corridors in the hotel are almost as confusing as Venice streets. Generous, help-yourself breakfast included.

From the outside, this place doesn't look bad at all, and it's located pretty close to San Marcos plaza and the boardwalk. Unfortunately, as soon as you walk in you are assaulted with an extremely repugnant smell of sewage/rot that spreads throughout the entire stairwell of every single floor and the hallways connected to that stairwell because it is so strong of a stench. It was bad enough that upon smelling it despite breathing through my mouth, I gagged multiple times. I can't attest to the complimentary breakfast because the entry floor smelled so bad we weren't willing to sit down and eat, or even stay down there for an extended amount of time. As stated above, the hallways connected to the stairwell also smelled terrible because of the stench downstairs, but besides that, they were like a labyrinth. I felt like I was Theseus, so that was cool. The room looked great, very antique, and there was an entire hot tub in the bathroom, along with a towel warmer and hairdryer connected to the wall. Beds were big enough, but with kind of a hard mattress, which wasn't really a problem for me. The bath tub also periodically leaked after being used, but wasn't too much of a problem if you just put a towel down. There is a fainter smell of sewage coming from the bathroom that isn't nearly as bad as the entrance floor, but still unpleasant, since it also spreads towards the main room as well. The staff was very kind, but the guy with the ponytail was kind of creepy, and overly nice to young girls. 24 hour reception is a straight out lie since the ponytail guy and any other receptionist seemed to enjoy leaving the desk for long amounts of time, we only saw someone at the desk 2 times during our 3 day stay. You can definitely leave your luggage there, but they don't sticker it or put it behind the counter or do any safety measures at all. When we went to retrieve it, since there was nobody at the desk, we just took our stuff and left. Overall it was lukewarm-ish for a budget hotel, a little sketchy in some parts, and the overwhelming stench is definitely a deal-breaker, but if you need a place to go for cheap, it's not the worst place. I would definitely not go back myself, though. I forgot to add this before posting, but I got a few bug bites, as did my dad. Since this hotel has a history of bedbugs based on the reviews, I wouldn't put it too unlikely they still have them.