Palazzo Dario

Lonely Planet review

You can get some impression of this late-Gothic mansion (aka Ca' Dario) from the rear, but to really appreciate it you need to see the façade - a unique Renaissance marble facing that was taken down and reattached in the 19th century - from the Grand Canal. It was one of the first of Venice's Renaissance buildings to be faced entirely in marble.

The building looks unsteady and many Venetians view it with misgiving, given that most of its owners - starting with the daughter of the man who had it built in 1479-87, Giovanni Dario - seem to have met mysterious or miserable ends, lost fortunes or become frightfully ill. Just staying here seems to be tempting fate. One week after renting the place for a holiday, The Who's bass player, John Entwhistle, died of a heart attack in June 2002. Some people can't read signs: the band's former manager and then owner of the building had committed suicide there decades earlier. Film director Woody Allen supposedly backed off from buying it in the 1990s, just in case.