The Venice access fee ended on 27 July 2026, and the Biennale runs until 22 November. Between those two dates sit the best eight weeks of the Venetian year: autumn light, the Danieli back on the Riva degli Schiavoni with 120 rooms, two hotels that opened this spring and already hold Michelin Keys, a marathon, four exhibitions closing on the same weekend and no QR code to show at the station. Here is October in Venice with the dates, the prices and the hours as the institutions publish them.
Eight weeks of Biennale on autumn hours
The 61st International Art Exhibition, In Minor Keys, runs at the Giardini and the Arsenale until Sunday 22 November. It is the exhibition Koyo Kouoh conceived, and the Biennale has said it is carrying it out “just as she conceived and defined it”, with the support of her family. There are 110 invited participants, 100 national participations, 29 in the Giardini pavilions, 25 at the Arsenale and 46 around the city, and 31 collateral events. From Tuesday 29 September the hours change. Both venues open from 10 to 18, last entry 17:45, and close on Mondays, with one exception: Monday 16 November, in the final week, is open. A single ticket covering both venues costs 30 euros, 20 for over-65s and Venice residents, 16 for students and under-26s; a three-day ticket is 40 euros and a weekly ticket 50. The Giardini entrance is at Viale Trento 1260 and from Sant’Elena, the Arsenale’s at Campo de la Tana 2169/F and Ponte dei Pensieri, and tickets are on labiennale.org. Two weeks in the middle of October belong to music. Biennale Musica, the 70th festival, titled A Child of Sound and directed by Caterina Barbieri, runs from 10 to 24 October at the Arsenale theatres and Ca’ Giustinian, with concerts at 25 euros.
No access fee this autumn
The 2026 trial of the contributo di accesso covered 60 non-consecutive days between 3 April and 26 July, at 5 euros for anyone who paid at least four days ahead and 10 euros for the rest, applied from 8:30 to 16:00. The Comune’s portal now carries a single line: the trial has ended, and from 27 July the fee is no longer in effect. There are no fee days in October or November. Nothing to book, nothing to show, no exemption to request. The 2027 calendar, if there is one, will be announced by the city.
The Danieli is back, with 120 rooms and a rooftop chef
Danieli, Venezia, A Four Seasons Hotel welcomed its first guests on 30 July 2026, after a restoration of Palazzo Dandolo and the Casa Nuova by Pierre-Yves Rochon. It reopens with 120 rooms and suites, 52 of them suites, and will grow again in 2027 when the third building, Palazzo Danieli Excelsior, is finished; the hotel’s own site gives the final count as 176. Adriano Rausa, the executive chef, runs Terrazza Danieli, the rooftop restaurant, and Bar Dandolo has reopened below it. The spa, three treatment rooms with a hammam and a sauna, is scheduled for late 2026. Four Seasons does not publish an opening rate. For a first autumn back, the position is the point: the Riva degli Schiavoni, a ten-minute walk from the Arsenale entrance of the Biennale, and the view across the Bacino to San Giorgio Maggiore that has been the hotel’s argument since it opened.
Two openings of the year: Airelles Palladio and Orient Express
Airelles Palladio, on the Giudecca, took the Michelin Guide’s Opening of the Year award on 18 September and three Keys in the same selection, in its first season. The 16th-century building faces St. Mark’s across the water, with 17 rooms, 28 suites and a private three-bedroom villa, and a Guerlain spa of 1,700 square metres over three floors that the hotel describes as the largest in Venice. The restaurants are abc kitchens, Villa Frollo by Norbert Niederkofler and Matsuhisa by Nobu, with pastry by Cédric Grolet. Across the Bacino, Orient Express Venezia opened on 30 March 2026 in Palazzo Donà Giovannelli, a 15th-century palazzo reworked by Aline Asmar d’Amman, with 47 rooms, suites and residences, La Casati for all-day dining, the Wagon Bar and a Heinz Beck restaurant announced for 2027; it holds one Key. We covered the palazzo when it opened.
The established houses, and the one still to come
Venice now has three hotels with three Michelin Keys, more than any other Italian city: Airelles Palladio; Aman Venice, 24 rooms in Palazzo Papadopoli on the Grand Canal; and Hotel Cipriani, A Belmond Hotel, on the Giudecca, with 55 rooms, 20 suites and four signature suites, the Dior Spa that opened this spring and the starred Oro under Vania Ghedini with Massimo Bottura. The Cipriani is seasonal and does not publish its closing date, so an October booking needs a call first. The Gritti Palace, two Keys and 82 rooms, keeps the Gritti Terrace on the Grand Canal open through October, with Alberto Fol in the kitchen and a Sisley spa; Nolinski Venezia, two Keys, has 43 rooms in the former stock exchange near San Marco and Zeffirino, the Genoese restaurant founded in 1939. Three one-Key houses complete the shortlist: Ca’ di Dio on the Riva, 60 rooms; Violino d’Oro, 32 rooms and family-owned, near Piazza San Marco; and Il Palazzo Experimental on the Giudecca canal at Dorsoduro, 32 rooms by Dorothée Meilichzon, with Adriatica under chef Denis Begiqi. The St. Regis, 163 rooms on the Grand Canal, is open all year without a Key. Still to come is Rosewood Hotel Bauer, whose page promises just over 110 rooms, a rooftop pool on the eighth floor and a renovation led by Alberto Torsello with BAR Studio; the official site gives no current opening date.
| Hotel | Rooms | Michelin Keys 2026 | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Airelles Palladio | 17 rooms, 28 suites, villa | Three | Opening of the Year, Guerlain spa |
| Aman Venice | 24 | Three | Palazzo Papadopoli, Grand Canal |
| Hotel Cipriani, A Belmond Hotel | 55 rooms, 20 suites, 4 signature suites | Three | Seasonal, Dior Spa, Oro |
| The Gritti Palace | 82 | Two | Terrace open to October |
| Nolinski Venezia | 43 | Two | Former stock exchange, Zeffirino |
| Orient Express Venezia | 47 | One | Opened 30 March 2026 |
| Ca’ di Dio | 60 | One | Riva Ca’ di Dio |
| Violino d’Oro | 32 | One | Family-owned, near San Marco |
| Il Palazzo Experimental | 32 | One | Dorsoduro, Giudecca canal |
| Danieli, Venezia, A Four Seasons Hotel | 120, 176 in 2027 | Reopened 30 July 2026 | Terrazza Danieli, spa late 2026 |
| The St. Regis Venice | 163 | None | Open all year |
| Rosewood Hotel Bauer | About 110, planned | Not yet open | No date on the official site |
The autumn calendar, weekend by weekend
Sunday 25 October is the 40th Venicemarathon, with a record 23,000 entrants and all three distances sold out; the 42 kilometres start at Villa Pisani at Stra at about 9:40 and finish on the Riva Sette Martiri, after the pontoon bridge across the Grand Canal and Piazza San Marco. Plan around it. At Punta della Dogana, the Pinault Collection shows Lorna Simpson, Third Person, and Paulo Nazareth, Algebra, until 22 November, and Michael Armitage, The Promise of Change, at Palazzo Grassi until 10 January 2027; both venues open 10 to 18, closed on Tuesdays, at 20 euros. Fondazione Prada’s Helter Skelter, Arthur Jafa and Richard Prince at Ca’ Corner della Regina, closes on 23 November. Ca’ Pesaro shows about 30 paintings by Jenny Saville, including new work for the final room, until 22 November. The Peggy Guggenheim Collection closes Peggy Guggenheim in London on 19 October, before the show travels to the Royal Academy, and its next exhibition, on the Fucina degli Angeli and 20th-century glass, is announced for 14 November. The season ends where Venice’s does: on Saturday 21 November, the Festa della Madonna della Salute, when the votive bridge of boats crosses the Grand Canal from Santa Maria del Giglio to San Gregorio. The city has not yet published the 2026 bridge dates; last year it opened on the Wednesday at noon and stayed until the Sunday.
Getting in and getting around
From Marco Polo airport, Alilaguna’s boats cost 18 euros one way, 32 return and 80 for a 72-hour pass; the Blu line calls at Murano, Fondamente Nove, the Lido, Arsenale, San Zaccaria and San Marco, the Arancio line at Rialto and Santa Maria del Giglio for the Gritti. A private water taxi from the Consorzio Motoscafi covers up to four people and four bags in the base fare, with 15 euros added between 22:00 and 7:00, 10 euros per person from the fifth and 5 euros per suitcase from the fifth; the fare itself comes from the booking engine, and the line answers around the clock. In the city, an ACTV ticket is 9.50 euros for 75 minutes, or 25 euros for a day, 35 for two, 45 for three and 65 for a week. One more number belongs to autumn: 110. That is the forecast tide, in centimetres, above which the MOSE barriers are raised, and the Autorità per la Laguna counts 49 closures in the 2025 to 2026 season so far. Below that threshold Piazza San Marco can still take water on the highest autumn tides, which is what the raised walkways are for. The forecast app is the only umbrella a visitor needs.
The Luxury.it perspective
October is the month Venice is built for, and this year the arithmetic favours it. The fee has ended for the year, the Biennale is on shorter hours but open for eight more weeks, and the hotel stock has moved in twelve months as it rarely does in a decade: the Danieli back, Airelles and Orient Express new, a Dior spa at the Cipriani, three three-Key hotels in one city. What has not changed is the order of things. See the Arsenale on a Tuesday morning at 10, when the autumn hours begin and the summer crowds have gone; keep Sunday 25 October for the marathon or leave the city for it; book the Cipriani knowing it will close, without saying when. Venice did not make The World’s 50 Best Hotels list this year, as we noted in our report on the top 50. In October, with the light on the Bacino at six in the evening, that omission will look like a gap in the list, not in the city.
Related guides
Michelin Keys 2026: Italy’s 17 three-key hotels · Hotel openings in Europe, 2026 to 2027 · Luxury spa hotels in Italy · Michelin-starred restaurants in Italy
