Hartwell House Hotel & Spa

A 16th-century Buckinghamshire mansion where Louis XVIII spent five years in exile, Hartwell House is a country-house hotel about 40 miles from London. The 46 rooms are individually decorated, which sounds like a small thing until you're standing beneath an ornate plasterwork ceiling surrounded by antiques. A Jacobean-statue-lined staircase that's been here 400 years anchors it all. There's a spa with an indoor pool when the parkland strolls lose their appeal.