Adare Manor

Surrounded by 341-hectare estate with winding woodland paths, medieval ruins and the magical River Maigue, sits the grand Adare Manor. It’s nothing short of an Irish fairy tale. The restored building houses 104 bedrooms, each individually decorated with Georgian-inspired mahogany furniture, fireplaces and roll-top bathtubs. Head chef Michael Tweedie creates...read more

The Village Pub

Barnsley

The Calcot Collection runs a cool little string of boutique hotels in the Cotswolds, offering innovative, open-necked luxury aimed at recharging urban creatives. Of them, The Village Pub feels like the group’s pied-à-terre: it’s conceptually simple and unfussy, and all the better for it. The six reasonably priced rooms are...read more

Grand Hotel Continental

Siena

Siena’s colourful contrade, or neighbourhoods, still inspire loyalty as deep as when the town’s Palio – the infamous bare-backed horse race – was inaugurated in medieval times. For a slice of Tuscan life, rest your head at Grand Hotel Continental. Originally a Renaissance palazzo, the restored building boasts 51 individually...read more

Stoke Park

Berkshire

When Auric Goldfinger’s Korean manservant Oddjob whipped off a statue’s head with a toss of his steel-rimmed Sandringham hat, Stoke Park became immortalised in movie legend for eternity. Connery’s Bond’s round of golf here is arguably the most famous representation of the sport on the silver screen and it couldn’t...read more

The Ludlow

New York

Manhattan’s gritty Lower East Side has long been dressed in European sentiment – the Dutch boweries of the 1600s, the Irish tenement rogues and Italian rapscallions of 19th-century novels, the famous Jewish delis and the avant-garde artists of the Seventies are just a few examples. Today, The Ludlow stands as...read more

Conrad Maldives

Held in time as you watch schools of fish flit through the gin-clear waters, the feeling of being part of a living picture-postcard is hard to escape. Enveloped amid infinite blues, surrounded by rustling palms and sugar-soft sand, it all seems Photoshopped. But this is real life at Conrad Rangali...read more

Tyddyn Llan Corwen

Corwin

Stepping into the Duke of Westminster’s former shooting lodge feels like wonderful step back in time into a well-heeled friend’s country pile. Hidden at the gateway to Snowdonia National Park and the perfect staging post for a hike up Snowdon (take the Pyg Track for the best views), the countryside...read more

The Vineyard Hotel

Berkshire

Already a mecca for master oenophiles who flock to the sprawling five-star Vineyard for its neon-lit, 30,000-bottle wine cellar, novice noses should also make the pilgrimage. Put your taste buds on trial with the excellent Judgement tasting menu, which plays on the 1976 Judgement of Paris, when American New World...read more

Cotton House Hotel

Barcelona

To spend time here evokes a feeling akin to the soft embrace of a duvet day: it’s comforting, spoiling and relaxing all at once. You’ll find Cotton House in the Eixample District, poised in a 19th-century edifice on Grand Via. Run of the mill it ain’t. Its subtle motif, inspired...read more