Arriving at Santa Luca stazione by train, we took a vaporetto from Ferrovia port to San Samuele port. There, Marina met us and took us to the Ca del Duca apartment.
The apartment is two floors up from the ground floor. Upon entering the second floor door, there is a shared common space with three (I think) other units and another locked door to the Ca del Duca, Grand Canal unit.
The view of the Grand Canal is honestly quite breathtaking, and the highlight of the stay. We could sit for hours watching boats go by against the backdrop of the opposing row of apartments across the canal.
We traveled in the end of May and temperatures were consistently in the 80s (felt like 90). As advertised, the unit does not have air-conditioning and (this sounds like first world problems), it was just too hot for us even with the windows open. Just our personal preference. We took showers before going to bed (sidenote: the shower situation was interesting) with the windows open and the Citronella (we think that’s what it was) candle on, but kept being startled awake by the buzzing sound of mosquitos in our ear. Closed the windows. And that night, I killed 8 mosquitos in the bedroom.
Also one warning - check the Cafissimo (not Nespresso) espresso maker pod reservoir before using it. Ours was not emptied and had 5 used pods still in the chamber, causing the new pod to seat improperly. Luckily I was watching it brew, otherwise, it would have overflowed and made a mess.