Aria Hotel Budapest

Budapest’s Aria Hotel is, like its cousin in Prague, not just named after a musical term, but inspired from top to bottom by music. Its four wings — Classical, Jazz, Opera, and Contemporary — contain rooms named for famous musicians, from Bach to Billie Holliday, from Handel to Whitney Houston.

And you certainly can’t accuse the designer, Zoltan Varro, of giving these musical influences short shrift — in addition to an endless variety of musical-themed artworks and objets, the Classical and Opera rooms are Baroque in style, the Jazz rooms pay homage to the Twenties, and the Contemporary rooms draw on Pop Art for their visual references.

The Aria’s appeal is more than just visual. This is a proper luxury hotel, in a prime location in the heart of town, with views of St. Stephen’s Basilica. The rooms feature heaping pillow-top beds, swanky onyx bathrooms, 55-inch flatscreens and Nespresso machines, and the suites just get bigger and more extravagant from there, some adding private terraces, others “opera” balconies.

As for public spaces, there’s the rooftop High Note bar and restaurant, there’s the Music Garden atrium lounge with its rare Bogányi piano, and there’s Café Lizst, a lively music-themed gastronomic restaurant. Combine this with the subterranean Harmony Spa and you’ve got a boutique hotel that’s on a level with any of the big luxury chains, and with personality to spare.