The One Palácio da Anunciada Hotel

Lisbon, Portugal

The elegant, cool-blue 16th-century facade (a shade that matches the crisp winter skies above), palatial touches that arrive unexpectedly among the quiet luxury of 21st-century interiors, and suites filled with
vanilla ice-cream-coloured sunshine and unobtrusive technology – it’s the seamless blend of modern comfort with an aristocratic air that ensures this relatively new hotel tops the list of Portugal’s blue-blooded offerings.

A stroll from the bustle of Avenida da Liberdade and the electric Praça do Comércio, the original marble floors, pastel-washed stucco reliefs, grand staircases and azulejo tiling in One Palácio da Anunciada are sophisticated relics of Lisbon’s riches-filled past, when the paint-palette terraces and teetering hilltop neighbourhoods were littered with fairy-tale palácios. Once home to the city’s wealthy merchant classes, you’ll spot Ferragamo-swathed ladies sipping vinho verde under the century-old dragon tree planted in the hotel’s airy courtyard. Painstakingly lifted to the verdant first-floor terrace during restoration, its heavy boughs serve as natural parasols, shading the Lisbon sun. Suites, by comparison, offer more cutting-edge finesse, with glittering white walls, and bleached wood providing welcome calm from the city’s bustle. Downstairs, alongside the restaurant and bar, sits a softly lit spa. Luxuriate in the sauna before heading up for a dip in the 18m rooftop pool. Post-flight siestas are best spent on the white-shrouded poolside cabanas – the perfect spot to watch Lisbon’s winged mascots – swallows – dance over red rooftops.

Words by Lucy Kehoe. Doubles from £186. hotelstheone.com