It's no accident that this grand hotel on the shores of Lake Garda feels royal: This place was built in 1888 as a hunting lodge for the Austrian royal family. Before people like Federico Fellini, Shirley Temple, and Gustav Klimt stayed there, it was used for hunting. You're not too far from the snow-capped Dolomites, but the swimming pool with umbrellas and the lush gardens with palms and banana trees might make you think you're somewhere much further south.

During World War II, the property was used as a military hospital before being taken over by the Germans, then the Americans, and then the British. It suffered a lot of damage, but the original beechwood stairs and spruce ceilings show its neoclassical roots. The rest of the decor is now much more modern, with clean lines, luxurious fabrics, and a soothing color palette of creams. The best place to eat is Il Fagiano, which is run by Maurizio Bufi, who was born in Puglia and mixes traditional Italian flavors in dishes like his signature squid with sweetbreads and cashews.

A legend This classic hotel is more than the sum of its parts, even though it is on a coast full of legends. At the center was the summer home of the wealthy Sersale family in Positano. In 1951, four brothers and sisters opened the house to guests. It had eight rooms and a large terrace that looked out over the sea. In the 1990s, Franco Sersale was in charge of a major expansion and renovation. He was a passionate art collector, but he was also a world traveler and photographer who never stopped.

The current owners, Antonio, and Carla Sersale are also art collectors. Each year, they invite an artist, such as Martin Creed, Stanley Whitney, and Matt Connors, to make a piece that fits the space. Most of the rooms aren't very big, but they are very nice. They have traditional tiled floors, old chests, and tables and chairs on balconies that look out over the steep path through the village that leads down to the beach. With its 400 candles and bougainvillea-covered dining room, the hotel's main restaurant, La Sponda, is one of the best places to eat dinner on the coast, both for the atmosphere and the food.

Puglia is famous for its masserie: ancient fortified farmhouses far from the Adriatic coast, many of which have now been converted into luxury hotels. This one, in Masseria-filled Fasano, between Bari and Brindisi, and on the coast below the beautiful Valle d'Itria, has long been one of the best. But the 2019 renovation of Rocco Forte's 16th-century property takes things to the next level.

28 rooms and 12 suites, designed by Olga Polizzi, inspired by the olive grove in the background -- all light green door frames and more furniture to create rustic elegance high end. Outside, the vines-enclosed swimming pool, lush palm-fringed grounds, and the hotel's 9-hole golf course blend into the flat coastal landscape.

Taormina's first hotel, the Belmond Grand Hotel Timeo, still enthralls visitors with its views and more than a century-old history. The hotel overlooks the terracotta roofs of the medieval village and beyond the coast towards Etna. At the front there are manicured gardens, immaculately luxurious guest rooms, and a wellness center focusing on natural and organic products with local herbs and floral oils. The Literary Terrace was a hangout for D.H. Lawrence, Truman Capote, and Tennessee Williams, and inside, the 16-seat Otto Geleng restaurant has earned a Michelin star.

Il San Pietro di Positano is built into a cliff, and an elevator drops down through a rock shaft to the beach. This is a tribute to the vision and foolishness of the person who built it. It's the perfect place to relax on the Amalfi Coast, and the tasty but not too-fancy seasonal food makes it even better. Since the hotel opened in 1970, celebrities from all over the world have been coming here. It's not hard to see why: the village's steep, narrow stone streets and breathtakingly beautiful blue waters are the stuff of dreams (ours, anyway). The 56-room hotel sits on a small piece of prime real estate on a cliff above the Bay of Positano. It is a wild paradise filled with fragrant flowers and citrus trees. Beautifully tiled rooms with bright linen accents and big windows offer great views of the sea.

Quirky touches like lamps with designs of fanciful centaurs and gilded coffee tables add a touch of luxury. Some even have their own elevators and rooms with Jacuzzis. Start your day off with a plate of delicious strawberries and a thimble of espresso, then take an elevator down to a private beach or ask for a free boat rides around the bay. At Zass, which has a Michelin star, dinner is served on pink tables on a rock ledge high above the crashing waves. Specialties from the Mediterranean, like lobster tagliatelle and sea bass with truffle sauce, are served on pink plates.

The 14-room Splendido Mare, which used to be a guesthouse for fishermen, is the harborside sister of Belmond's Splendido, a hillside hideout that started out as a Benedictine monastery and became a hotel in 1901, attracting movie stars (Elizabeth Taylor had four honeymoons there). Charlotte de Tonnac and Hugo Sauzay, two well-known Parisians, did a beautiful job on the renovation. They used local terra-cotta tiles and nautical touches, like knots woven into the headboards, as well as Gio Ponti armchairs and rich Loro Piana fabrics.

Everything is done subtly, almost without being noticed, and Enrico and Roberto Cerea's cooking looks easy, but it isn't. Their restaurant in Bergamo has three Michelin stars, but here they focus on seafood and traditional Ligurian dishes, like a delicious pesto trofie. After all, this is Portofino, which is above all a quiet place where actors and locals who drink aperitivo don't bother each other too much.

This glam Art Nouveau retreat on Lake Como is a great example of Italian excess in all the right ways. It has beautiful parquet floors in the open foyer, oil paintings of women that look like Botticelli's paintings in the cozy T Bar, and tufted sofas in the sitting room that are the colors of gems. The rooms are just as fancy. Fans of baroque will like the gilded bed frames and mirrors, high ceilings, floor-to-ceiling curtains, and wall sconces. After getting treatment at the T Spa, you can take a dip in a pool that is built right into the lake and looks like a sapphire. The view is the main draw at the main restaurant, La Terrazza Gualtiero Marchesi.

L'Escale, the on-site trattoria, is another great place to eat dinner. During the day, you can take Ruy or Batt, the hotel's slim mahogany boats, out on Lake Como or up the coast to the historic, azalea-covered Villa Carlotta for a day of sightseeing.

This 70-room, 34-suite hotel opened in Milan in the summer of 2015, right across the street from the famous La Scala opera house. It is also close to the luxury shopping streets of Via Montenapoleone and Via Della Spiga, which can be reached on foot. Highlights include a holistic spa with six private treatment rooms and an indoor pool, the Seta restaurant that serves Chef Antonio Guida's native southern Italian food and got its first Michelin star only four months after opening, and a hair salon run by celebrity stylist Massimo Serini. The Mandarin Bar has become one of the most popular places to see and be seen in town very quickly. The rooms are spread out over four beautifully restored 18th-century houses. The best ones have large private terraces and a unique touch of elegance from the 1940s that was designed by Antonio Citterio.

The Duomo and the Teatro Alla Scala are connected by the glass-roofed Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II. This may be Europe's most stylish shopping mall. As of 2019, this prime piece of land is also home to the first Vik Retreats location in Europe, which is a brand from South America. Art is the main focus here, just as it is in their properties in Uruguay and Chile. In the lobby, a copy of Auguste Rodin's sculpture "The Thinker" sits under a gold-leaf mural by Alex Folla and Elena Trailina that shows Atlas holding up the sky. Each of the 89 rooms and suites is named after a different artist.

Their modern works add pops of color and texture to the rooms, which also have stucco Veneziano, exposed beams, marble, and parquet floors. The hotel also has the I Dodici Gatti Pizzeria, which is named after the dozen cats who live on the roof of the galleria, and the recently opened Vik Pellico Otto, which has a view of the hotel's famous bull mosaic. It's not too much of an exaggeration to say that you can see many of the city's most famous landmarks without ever leaving the hotel, or even from your bed if you book a room with a view of the arcade.

The neoclassical Grand Hotel Villa Serbelloni has been taking care of guests since 1873. It is one of the oldest and most elegant hotels on Lake Como. Since almost the beginning, it has been home to wealthy people from all over the world. Then came politicians like Churchill, Roosevelt, and Kennedy, as well as famous people (Mary Pickford, Clark Gable, and, later, Al Pacino).

There are paintings and frescoes of mythological scenes, gilded frames, festoons, temples, putti, flamingos, and Pompeian reds. Then there are French-style period wall coverings, antique Persian carpets, Murano crystal chandeliers, marble staircases, and trompe l'oeil. If it all gets too much, go outside to the Italian-style gardens, which have the best views of the clear blue water and tall green mountains.