Hotel María Cristina

Every September, the San Sebastián International Film Festival descends on this Belle Époque hotel and turns it, briefly, into the most glamorous address in the Basque Country: directors and actors spilling out of screenings and straight into the bar to argue about what they've just seen. The hotel opened in 1912 on the banks of the River Urumea, named after the Spanish Queen Regent who lent it her patronage, and the rest of the year it settles back into serving the Basque Country's famously food-obsessed clientele. 136 rooms, a Luxury Collection property, and a city many consider to have the finest food culture anywhere in Europe. The María Cristina makes a strong case for being its finest address to match.