What you see in the pictures is exactly the way it is...absolutely beautiful. Once a wealthy merchant's villa in the merchant part of the city, it is now a great place to launch your Venice vacation from. We took a private water taxi from the airport for 120 Euro and it dropped our family of four right off at the San Samuel dock and the small campo where the apartment is located. The manager met us and we walked through 3 doors to get to our apartment the first 150 years old with skeleton key and the other two more modern and much more secure. The last door is like a bank vault...very secure. The Cassandra apartment has a full kitchen, dishwasher, washer and dryer, pull out sofa bed in living room, 3 large windows that open to the grand canal, and two windows that open to a beautiful garden that you don't have access to but is still beautiful to look at. This place was the highlight of our trip and we really felt special staying here. Some areas of Venice are very crowded with 1000s of tourists. This apartment is not far from those areas but is very quiet and secluded. I can't recommend this place highly enough. We really enjoyed it. read more