BEST 10 HOTELS IN EUROPE IN 2018 ACCORDING TO CONDE NAST TRAVELLER

By: Christian Stan | 12 October, 2018

Conde Nast Readers’ Travel Awards have many well-known names from over the years and a few relatively new arrivals. In Europe, Six Senses Douro Valley was liked for its modern-chic rooms, while Belmond Hotel Spendido impressed with its Riviera elegance. At the top, Hôtel du Cap-Eden Roc, an inspiration for F Scott Fitzgerald, is still a place to be written about more than a century after it opened.

1. HOTEL DU-CAP-EDEN-ROC, ANTIBES, FRANCE

On a 22-acre park, situated at the tip of Cap d’Antibes, halfway between Cannes and Nice, the Hotel du Cap Eden Roc overlooks the Mediterranean sea.

An incredible setting is home to the hotel where elegance and luxury are continually in perfect harmony. The resort offers a haute-cuisine restaurant Eden-Roc and its panoramic terrace, piano bar “La Rotonde”, Grill Eden-Roc and Lounge Bar Eden-Roc with its culinary specialties such as sushis, its reception room, its heated sea water swimming-pool, its SPA Eden Roc Sisley, its 5 clay tennis courts as well as a private pontoon.

2. LA RESERVE PARIS

With more suites than rooms (26 to 14) and an ideal location just yards from the presidential palace and midway between the Avenue Montaigne and the Rue du Faubourg St-Honoré, La Réserve belongs to Michel Reybier, a sausages-and-gasoline to hotel-and-wine magnate. Originally constructed for the Duc de Morny, half-brother to Napoleon III, the building dates from 1854, but the typically opulent Jacques Garcia interiors—all gilded boiseries, antique mirrors, and silk damasks—actually date from the hotel’s opening in 2015.

All this might make La Réserve sound like a top-end boutique hotel, but it offers everything you’d expect from a much larger establishment: a full-service spa, a 50-foot pool, a bucolic outdoor patio, and two restaurants—the Asian-inspired La Pagode de Cosand the more formal Restaurant le Gabriel, which earned chef Jérome Banctel two Michelin stars in February 2017.

3. SIX SENSES DOURO VALLEY, PORTUGAL

A lofty hilltop perch in Portugal’s celebrated wine region, boutique hotel Six Senses Douro Valley happily reconciles healthy living devotees with their inner hedonists.

Stays at this striking terracotta-hued 19th-century manor are all about wellbeing: luxuriate in river-view rooms, climb ancient trees in the grounds’ nature trails, feast on organic produce from the kitchen’s own gardens and surrender to the ministrations of the spa’s skilled therapists.

4. BELMOND HOTEL PORTOFINO, ITALY

Two are indisputably better than one at the Belmond Hotel Splendido and Belmond Splendido Mare, a dual-property entity perched high above Portofino cove. Both halves carry with them a bit of history: the 70-room Hotel Splendido, which rests on a steep, craggy hill overlooking the area’s fabled turquoise waters, was once a 16th-century monastery known for withstanding attacks from Saracen pirates, while the other, 16-room “Mare” half sits on the piazzetta, a respite from the lively Ligurian harbor.

The rooms mostly come with terra-cotta-tiled terraces where you can take your morning cappuccino, and some offer up stunning panoramic views of Portofino cove.

5. HOTEL CIPRIANI, VENICE, ITALY

An elegant oasis of serenity and style, Belmond Hotel Cipriani in Venice has a special place in Belmond history as the first hotel in its global portfolio of iconic properties, trains and river cruises. Set on Giudecca Island, a five-minute ride by private launch from Piazza San Marco, Belmond Hotel Cipriani captures everything La Serenissima is famed for and every inch of this iconic hideaway is guaranteed to enchant.

Exquisite antiques and local artifacts whisk you back in time, while Michelin-starred gastronomy, charming staff and the only Olympic-sized swimming pool in the city offer modern sophistication. Known as one of the most celebrated luxury hotels in Venice, it is the special air of romance what sets this grand hotel apart from the rest.

6. LE BRISTOL, PARIS, FRANCE