Grand Hotel Imperiale Resort & SPA

We love a hotel that reinvents its genre, but the classic Lake Como luxury-hotel experience is one that doesn’t exactly cry out for revision. Here in Moltrasio, a sleepy town on the western shore a short drive from the town of Como, you’ll find the Grand Hotel Imperiale Resort & Spa, a 1922 Art Nouveau gem that’s more than up to the task of delivering the archetypal Como holiday: an atmosphere of elegance, a spectacular setting, and comforts that are nothing if not restorative.

The spa complex itself is modern both in its treatments and in its architecture and design, but it doesn’t detract from the atmosphere a bit — the rooms and suites, meanwhile, remain true to the hotel’s century-old style, both in the main hotel and in the stunning semi-private Villa Imperiale.

A dramatic lakeside swimming pool is among the Imperiale’s greatest strengths, as are its two restaurants: the more casual Ulivo serves guests in the hotel’s garden, while the more formal Imperialino is set right at the lakeside, and serves simple but unmistakably high-end Italian fare with the sort of view that’s precisely why you came to Lake Como in the first place.