Hotel Sacher Wien

Some hotels belong to their cities the way cathedrals do, and the Sacher is Vienna's. Facing the State Opera since 1876 and still privately owned, it wears its history in layers: crimson silk walls, oil paintings hung three deep, chandeliers, and a café whose marble tables have hosted a century and a half of gossip over the original Sachertorte. Yet behind the velvet the hotel runs on thoroughly modern engineering.

Rooms and suites are individually decorated in Maria Theresa yellows, reds and creams, with heavy fabrics, antique pieces and marble bathrooms; opera-facing suites put the Ringstrasse's nightly glamour outside the window. Service is Viennese in the best sense—formal, twinkly-eyed and quietly funny—and the concierge desk works opera tickets like few others in Europe.

The restaurants span a candle-lit gourmet room, the wood-panelled Grüne Bar and the famous café, while the top-floor spa surprises with contemporary calm above the historic floors. Everything that matters in central Vienna—the Albertina, Kärntner Strasse, the Hofburg—is within a few minutes' walk. For classic European grand hotellerie with genuine soul, the Sacher remains close to definitive.