The Art Nouveau thermal baths at the Gellért — with their marble columns, mosaic floors, and an outdoor wave pool — are among the most famous in a city of famous baths. The hotel opened in 1918 at the foot of Gellért Hill, and the thermal springs that feed the baths have been used since the 13th century. The building's position on the Buda side of the Danube, directly below the Citadella, gives it a dramatic setting. 234 rooms.

The café on the ground floor was called “the most beautiful café in the world” when it opened in 1894, and nobody has seriously challenged the title since. The Hungarian architects responded with an interior of gilt, frescoes, marble columns, and chandeliers that makes the Opéra look understated. Legend holds that the writer Ferenc Molnár threw the keys to the café into the Danube so it could never be closed. 185 rooms.

Built in 1896 for the Hungarian Millennium Exhibition — the celebration of a thousand years of Magyar statehood — the Corinthia has the scale and ambition of a building that was designed to make a national statement. The Royal Spa, set in the original turn-of-the-century swimming pool, is the hotel's centrepiece. 414 rooms, making it one of the largest grand hotels in Central Europe.

The Gresham Palace is the finest Art Nouveau building in Budapest — and in a city where Art Nouveau is practically a religion, that's a serious claim. Built in 1906 as the headquarters of the Gresham Life Assurance Company, the building sat neglected through the Communist era before Four Seasons restored it in 2004 with a reverence for the original craftsmanship that borders on devotion. The iron Peacock Gates, the Zsolnay tile mosaics, and the soaring atrium are all original. 179 rooms and what many consider the single finest view in Central European hospitality.

Built in 1902 for Duchess Maria Klotild of Habsburg as one of a pair of matching palaces flanking the approach to the Elisabeth Bridge. Wolfgang Puck chose it for his first European outpost of Spago. The rooftop terrace, with views of the Danube, the Gellért Hill, and the Buda Castle, brings together the three defining views of Budapest in a single cocktail. 130 rooms.

The Excelsior has perched on the cliffs above the Adriatic just outside Dubrovnik's Old Town walls since 1913, which gives it both the finest views of the city and the necessary distance from its summer crowds. The terrace, where dinner is served with the illuminated Old Town as a backdrop, offers one of the most dramatic dining settings in the Mediterranean. 158 rooms and a private beach.

Another monastic conversion — a 14th-century Dominican monastery in Malá Strana — but this one trades the Augustine’s medieval atmosphere for the Mandarin Oriental’s sleek contemporary aesthetic. The spa, set in the Renaissance chapel with original frescoes, is among the most beautiful in any Mandarin Oriental worldwide. The juxtaposition of 14th-century stone and 21st-century minimalism shouldn’t work, but does. 99 rooms.

A 13th-century Augustinian monastery in Malá Strana, converted to a hotel by the Luxury Collection with a restraint that the medieval friars would have appreciated. The brewery, which produced beer for centuries, has been revived. The cloisters, the chapel, and the original refectory are all preserved. The monastery’s position at the foot of Prague Castle makes the short walk across the Charles Bridge feel like a journey between centuries. 101 rooms.

An Art Nouveau confection from 1904 that looks like it was designed by a pastry chef with architectural ambitions — the façade is lavishly decorated with mosaics, sculptures, and ornamental ironwork that represent Czech Modernism at its most exuberant. The hotel sits on the edge of the Old Town, and the Café de Paris serves beneath painted ceilings that would make Alphons Mucha proud. 86 rooms.

A 15th-century Baroque palace in the heart of the Old Town, with a private garden that is almost unheard of for a central Prague hotel. The building's history stretches from Bohemian nobility through the Habsburg era, and the conversion to a hotel preserved the vaulted ceilings, the courtyard, and the general air of aristocratic discretion. 75 rooms, LHW member, and the quietest address in a city that is no longer quiet.

The great Polish pianist and future prime minister Ignacy Jan Paderewski played at the opening in 1901, which rather set the tone. The Bristol survived the Warsaw Uprising of 1944 when most of the city was razed to the ground — one of only a handful of prewar buildings on the Royal Route to emerge intact. This accident of survival gives the hotel a weight of history that is felt differently here than at any other European grand hotel: it represents continuity in a city that lost almost everything. 206 rooms, a Luxury Collection property.

The oldest luxury hotel in Warsaw, operating in one form or another since 1857. The building survived the wars, the Communists, and a lengthy restoration before reopening under Raffles in 2018 with interiors that respect the 19th-century bones while adding a contemporary polish. The Long Bar — a Raffles signature — and the Europejski Grill have quickly become fixtures of Warsaw's reinvigorated dining scene. 106 rooms.

Built in 1925 specifically for passengers on the Orient Express — the legendary train stopped at Zagreb station next door, and the Esplanade was designed to give travellers a reason to break their journey. The Art Deco interiors, the ballroom, and the Zinfandel's restaurant (named after the grape variety that originated in Croatia, not California) all reflect the ambition of a hotel built for an international clientele. 208 rooms.