Where the city
meets the itinerary.

Every hotel in this collection is a genuine five-star address — the kind with a concierge who can arrange almost anything, a spa, a pool, and at least one restaurant worth a special trip on its own. Rooms range from a Deluxe City View to a full Presidential Suite, but the floor is always high: marble bathrooms, proper air conditioning, a real bar, and service that anticipates rather than reacts.

What varies is the character of the address. Some are landmark grand hotels with a hundred years of history behind the front desk — Baur au Lac in Zurich, the Danieli in Venice, the Grande Bretagne in Athens. Others are the newest tower on the skyline — the Peninsula Shanghai, the Silo in Cape Town, Fairmont's Twin Towers over the Nile. A handful are boutique by design, a dozen rooms rather than four hundred, chosen for something no chain hotel can offer.

These are used two ways on our itineraries: as the first and last night of a longer safari, easing the transition between the airport and the bush, or as a standalone city break in their own right — Marrakech, Cairo, Bangkok and Rome are each worth two or three nights before you go anywhere near a game vehicle.