The Best Hotels Near Locanda Locarnese, by the Record
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A grand belle époque hotel on the western shore of Lake Como, with views straight across to Bellagio and the Grigne mountains. The 90 rooms, two private villas, and five restaurants are draped in Como silk and tended by local artisans, and an immense botanical garden rolls down to the water's edge. It has been family-run from the start, which shows in the way the service feels unhurried rather than corporate.
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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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A neoclassical facade on the Lake Como waterfront in Menaggio, with the kind of ornate molding and chandeliers that make you feel underdressed just walking through the lobby. This hotel pairs that old-world bones with freshened interiors and modern furnishings, so it reads more lake house than museum. Balconies look straight out over the water, the spa is properly calm, and the pool is the sort you photograph before you get in.
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Three Neoclassical villas, a boathouse, and six acres of lakeside gardens make this Forbes Five Star resort feel less like a hotel and more like an estate you've somehow talked your way into. The pool floats in the lake itself, the CO.MO lounge does aperitivo with the mountains behind it, and the original plaster moldings have been around since an opera singer owned the place. Everyone looks suspiciously relaxed by check-in.
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A floating pool moored on Lake Como is somehow not even the most dramatic thing about this grand hotel. Once a cardinal's summer retreat, later a princess's, Villa d'Este has been welcoming guests since the 1870s, its 152 rooms filled with art and antiquities from centuries of noble owners. George Clooney is a neighbor; the rest of the regulars are merely famous. Forbes Four Star.
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Tibetan temple bells lined up beside mounted reindeer heads sets the tone: this is a Forbes Five Star luxury hotel in the Swiss Alps that can't quite decide if it's a mountain chalet or a Kyoto retreat, and somehow that tension works in its favor. Jean-Michel Gathy's design stacks alpine and Asian aesthetics until they start to look like cousins. There's a Japanese restaurant perched above 7,800 feet, a spa, pools, a golf course, and a cigar library for when serenity isn't quite the mood.
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Peter Zumthor designed the thermal baths at the center of this remote Alpine hotel, and the building's stone-and-water minimalism sets the tone for everything else: clean lines, natural materials, a quiet that feels earned by the mountain drive to get here. Rooms range from compact singles to Kengo Kuma penthouses, all with the kind of views that make you stop mid-sentence. Helicopter ski transfers are available for guests who find the Alps insufficiently dramatic on their own.