1919

Originally the Ritz Barcelona when it opened in 1919, and for decades the city's most opulent address. The hotel has since been renamed and renovated but retains the grand proportions and Belle Époque character that the original Ritz name implied. The Garden restaurant's glass ceiling floods the dining room with natural light, and the cocktail bar channels a 1920s atmosphere that feels genuine rather than contrived. 120 rooms on the Gran Via.

1918

The Majestic has occupied its position on the Passeig de Gràcia — Barcelona's grandest boulevard, flanked by Gaudí's Casa Batlló and Casa Milà — since 1918. Four generations of the Soldevila-Casals family have run it, and the family ownership gives it a warmth the international chains on the same street cannot replicate. 271 rooms, MALATS tapas bar, and a rooftop terrace with pool and views of the Sagrada Família.

1924

Perched on Tibidabo — the hill overlooking Barcelona — the Gran Hotel La Florida opened in 1924 and immediately became the retreat of choice for anyone who wanted to see Barcelona without being in it. Hemingway stayed during the Spanish Civil War. The hotel closed in 1970 and lay dormant for three decades before a spectacular renovation brought it back in 2003. 70 rooms and the sense that you've been given the keys to Barcelona's balcony.

1930

During the Second World War, neutral Portugal became Europe's espionage capital, and the Palácio Estoril was its headquarters. British and German spies drank in the same bar, played baccarat at the casino next door, and tried to eavesdrop on each other through hidden microphones. One of those spies was a young British Naval Intelligence officer named Ian Fleming, who watched a double agent named Dušan Popov wager a fortune at the baccarat table — and twelve years later turned the scene into Casino Royale. The Spy Bar still serves a 007 Martini. Opened in 1930, with 161 rooms, and a guest ledger that reads like an intelligence dossier crossed with the Almanach de Gotha.

1891

Winston Churchill came to paint. George Bernard Shaw came to learn the tango. The hotel has clung to its clifftop above the Atlantic on the island of Madeira since 1891, when a Scottish entrepreneur named William Reid built the palace he had spent his life dreaming of. He died the year before it opened. The gardens, cascading down the cliff to the sea, are subtropical and extravagant, and the terrace is one of those settings that photographs cannot quite capture. 158 rooms and a sense of transatlantic gentility that has survived every fashion since the Victorian era.

1891

The “Palace of the Ducks” takes its name from the ornamental birds that once populated the gardens of this 1891 alabaster palace. The conversion to a hotel preserved the original neoclassical façade while adding a sleek contemporary wing behind it. The Alhambra is a short drive uphill. 42 rooms and a spa that draws on the Moorish hammam tradition.

1870

Tucked into Lisbon's embassy quarter on a hill above the river, the Lapa Palace was originally a 19th-century palace before its conversion to a hotel. The diplomatic neighbourhood gives it a quietness that the more central Lisbon hotels cannot offer, and the terraced gardens create the sense of a private estate rather than a public hotel. The heated outdoor pool, surrounded by palms, overlooks the Tagus and the 25 de Abril Bridge. 109 rooms and the atmosphere of a retreat for people who already know Lisbon well enough to want its pleasures without its noise. LHW member.

1907

The Valle-Flôr Palace was built in 1907 by a Portuguese marquis who spent so lavishly on the interiors — gilt ceilings, hand-painted frescoes, stained glass, marble everywhere — that he earned the nickname “The King of Diamonds.” The palace is now classified as a Portuguese National Monument. The gardens, with their centuries-old trees and views across the Tagus, are among the finest in Lisbon. 193 rooms, LHW member, and the most architecturally extravagant hotel in a city not short on architectural extravagance.

1912

King Alfonso XIII commissioned a second grand hotel just two years after the Ritz. The Palace opened in 1912 and immediately distinguished itself with a stained-glass dome over the central rotunda that remains one of the most beautiful hotel interiors in Spain. Dalí, Hemingway, and Picasso were regulars. 470 rooms and a location between the Prado and the Retiro Park that is essentially impossible to improve upon.

1910

César Ritz himself supervised the construction, and King Alfonso XIII opened the doors in 1910 — making this the only hotel in the world that a reigning monarch personally inaugurated. A comprehensive renovation by Mandarin Oriental (reopened 2021) modernised the interiors while preserving the Belle Époque bones. 153 rooms on the Paseo del Prado, directly opposite the Prado Museum, and a garden terrace that on a warm Madrid evening is one of the finest outdoor dining spots in the city.

1932

S'Agaró was conceived in the 1920s as a planned resort town on the Costa Brava — a Catalan answer to the Côte d'Azur — and La Gavina was its centrepiece. Ava Gardner stayed. Orson Welles was a regular. The hotel sits in a Mediterranean garden overlooking a cove, and the atmosphere is closer to a private seaside villa than a commercial hotel. 74 rooms and a sense of midcentury Mediterranean glamour that hasn't faded.

1912

Every September, the San Sebastián International Film Festival turns this Belle Époque hotel into the most glamorous address in the Basque Country. Opened in 1912 on the banks of the River Urumea, the María Cristina was named after the Spanish Queen Regent. 136 rooms, a Luxury Collection property, and a city that many consider to have the finest food culture in Europe.

1928

Built for the 1929 Ibero-American Exhibition, the Alfonso XIII is the architectural embodiment of Seville — Mudéjar arches, hand-painted tiles, wrought-iron balconies, and a central courtyard with a fountain that could have been designed for the express purpose of drinking sherry beside. 151 rooms, a Luxury Collection property, and a position within walking distance of the Alcázar, the cathedral, and the Giralda tower.