VIU Hotel Milan

When you hear about a hotel with a huge garden opening in a big city like Milan, the first question is where — and the second is how. Hotel Viu Milan is located in the happening neighborhood of Porta Garibaldi, home to the 10 Corso Como design center and one of Milan’s very own Eataly outposts — not exactly on the outskirts of town. So how did they do it? Easy: the garden is vertical. The greenery climbs up the edges of the tall glass-fronted building, framing the hotel and its rooftop — complete with swimming pool and terrace bar — in a dazzling display of contemporary landscape architecture.

Bold and refreshing, like the hotel itself. Hotel Viu is the brainchild of noted Milanese architect and designer Nicola Gallizia, and everything from the parquet oak flooring to the sleek bespoke furniture is carefully calibrated to his modernist-meets-retro aesthetic. The rooms and suites are lined with dark wood and outfitted in a palette of natural beige, chocolate brown and slate gray, but they’re also bathed in natural light, thanks to floor-to-ceiling windows. All come with spacious marble bathrooms with rainfall showers or tubs, stocked with products by Malin + Goetz.

Hotel Viu claims to be — bear with us here — the first hotel in Milan designed for the “bleisure traveler.” That’s business plus leisure, if you’re not quick with neologisms, and it means that in addition to free wi-fi and a huge Smart TV, you’ll have access to an in-room jet lag survival kit and a personal shopping service, just in case one of your bags didn’t make the connection.

You can even skip the front desk routine and complete your check-in online. Which leaves you more time for answering e-mails over apertivi on the rooftop or recuperating from the journey while floating in the rooftop pool. Leave business behind before venturing into Hotel Viu’s signature restaurant, though. Plenty of business gets done in here, but a meal by Michelin-starred chef Giancarlo Morelli deserves your undivided attention.