Cromlix - Secluded Victorian Perthshire Estate

There's a building in the Catalan countryside that spent eleven centuries refusing to fall. The Castle of Cardona, perched on a rocky promontory 460 meters (1,500 feet) above the walled town below, repelled Bourbon armies, outlasted Napoleonic sieges, and withstood the Carlists during the Spanish Civil War. Today, it's a …

There's a sandstone spiral staircase inside Schloss Schadau that is considered one of the finest in Europe. The walls are dressed in 170-year-old Parisian leather. The ceiling in the Bubenberg Salon is not actually wood - it just looks that way, painted with such virtuosity that the illusion holds even …

This isn't one of those hotels that calls itself a castle because it has turrets painted on the wallpaper. Peckforton Castle is the real deal – or at least as real as a Victorian landowner's fantasy of medieval life could get. Built between 1844 and 1850, it comes complete with …

Rising from the rocky heights of Pico de los Hidalgos, the Parador de Alarcón offers something most hotels can't: the chance to sleep in a genuine 8th-century fortress. With just 14 rooms, this converted castle in Spain's Cuenca province delivers an intimate experience that feels more like staying in a …

Perched on a wooded hillside in Málaga's genteel El Limonar neighborhood, the Soho Boutique Castillo de Santa Catalina occupies one of the most romantically improbable spots you could imagine for a hotel. This 1930s Moorish Revival villa sits directly atop the foundations of a 17th-century hilltop fortress – and you …

There is a photograph taken of you on arrival and placed on your nightstand by the time you reach your suite. The card alongside it reads: "We are celebrating you." This tells you almost everything you need to know about La Residence. The hotel - part of the family-owned Royal …

You cross an active airport runway to get there. The building you're sleeping in was built in Malaysia and transported across the ocean on a ship. Barbary macaque monkeys live on the limestone rock looming outside your window. And you're permanently at sea - except you're not, because the vessel …

Somewhere between your second dip in a thermal pool and watching the sun dissolve into the Tyrrhenian Sea, Ischia stops feeling like a place you're visiting and starts feeling like somewhere you might never want to leave. San Montano Resort & Spa has a way of doing that to people. …

There's a moment, sometime between your first glass of Pessac-Léognan and your third hour of doing absolutely nothing by an indoor pool, when Les Sources de Caudalie stops feeling like a hotel and starts feeling suspiciously like someone's very beautiful home that you've been allowed to borrow for a few …

Another Place, The Machrie does not announce itself. It accumulates - a golden eagle banking over the Atlantic, a genuine Tracey Emin hanging next to your breakfast table - until the place stops feeling like a hotel and starts feeling like a very convincing dream. Set on the Isle of …