The Best Hotels Near Macelleria Popolare, by the Record
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Twenty-four rooms in an 18th-century villa on Lake Como, each one individually designed and stuffed with original frescoes, Murano chandeliers, and the kind of gilded mirrors that make you feel briefly aristocratic. The terraced gardens run seven acres down to the water, and a vintage orange Fiat 500 handles property transport. Ranked fourth among the World's 50 Best Hotels, Passalacqua wears its grandeur lightly, the food is simple and seasonal, and the spa hides in a subterranean vault.
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Lake Lugano technically can't decide if it's Swiss or Italian, and neither can this lakeside hotel. The building is modernist glass angled toward the water, but step inside and the rooms lean toward Renaissance villa, all classic furnishings and bathrooms substantial enough to skip the spa over. Though the spa is worth skipping nothing for, with multiple pools, saunas, and a side offering in aesthetic medicine for guests who want restoration at a cellular level.
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A stately villa perched above Lake Lugano, once the private home of an actual prince, now a hotel where brocade sofas and marble bathrooms set the tone. Suites come with private balconies and views of either the lake or the gardens. There's a spa, a pool in a lemon grove, and an Italian-leaning restaurant with an ornate dining room that takes the regal theme quite seriously. The Michelin Guide awarded it 2 Keys.
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Perched on the edge of Lake Lugano, this old-world grand hotel keeps its antique-furnished rooms and high-ceilinged dining rooms largely intact, while quietly slipping in every modern comfort behind the velvet curtains. The modernist spa is where Switzerland's extravagant streak gets the most room to breathe. The Michelin Guide awarded it one Key.
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A luxury hotel on the shore of Lake Lugano, with a private summer terrace that makes sunbathing feel like a personal discovery rather than a poolside scramble. The property has been around forever, grown into a full estate with three restaurants, two bars, a Clarins spa, a pool, and a tennis court. The kind of place that doesn't need to try very hard, because the lake does most of the work.
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The rooms are dressed in blues borrowed from Lake Lugano, and the whole hotel is quietly in conversation with Dante's Divina Commedia, if you know to look for it. A boutique stay on the Piazza Cioccaro that handles business travelers without losing its personality, with an indoor green courtyard that feels genuinely restorative and a cocktail bar downstairs doing its own literary cosplay via French alchemist Nicolas Flamel.