Four Seasons Hotel Gresham Palace Budapest

Four Seasons Gresham Palace? On Roosevelt Square? Names aside, everything else about it is pure home-grown Art Nouveau Budapest romance. It’s in one of the city’s most auspicious locations, just off the Pest side of the Chain Bridge, and the square provides a perfect vantage point for taking in the whole building at once. Of course it’s not just an architectural monument, but a luxury hotel as well, and to feel the full impact of that, you’ve got to step inside.

The interiors are surprisingly up-to-date, if still antique in character — Art Deco is a style that somehow looks at once classic and contemporary. Incredibly, the Four Seasons group have managed to source many of the same materials originally used in the initial construction, and the feeling is less that of a hotel that has aged well and more that of a guest who has traveled back in time. Best to book one with an exterior view, if you can.

Elsewhere in the hotel things are no less classic, from the bar and café, serving local pastry, to the Italian-inflected fine dining restaurant. And no Budapest trip would be complete without a spa visit: this one, on the top floor rather than in the cellar, includes a cozy little infinity pool.