Art Hotels

Place du Forum is the address, and the building shows it. Fragments of the Roman forum are set into the façade of this former private mansion, which has worked as a hotel since the late nineteenth century.

Its reputation came from its guests. Bullfighters stayed here when they appeared in the city's Roman arena. Writers, painters and photographers followed, and the hotel became a fixture of the town's artistic life in the mid-twentieth century.

Photography keeps that link alive. Arles hosts a major photography festival each summer, and the hotel sits a few minutes' walk from most of its venues. Inside, the rooms favour heavy furniture, posters and old wrought iron over anything recent.

• Place du Forum
• Roman fragments in the façade
• Bullfighting history
• Photography festival town

Dorsoduro is the quieter half of central Venice. This is where Ca' Pisani stands, a short walk from the Gallerie dell'Accademia and the Peggy Guggenheim Collection.

The hotel occupies a historic Venetian building. What sets it apart is the interior. Original Art Deco pieces from the 1930s and 1940s furnish the rooms and public spaces, and the design draws on the same period. In a city full of gilt and brocade, the effect is deliberately different.

Guests come mostly for the museums nearby. The vaporetto stops along the Grand Canal make the rest of the city easy to reach.

• Dorsoduro
• Art Deco furniture
• Near the Accademia
• Design hotel

Seven buildings make up this hotel in Malá Strana, below Prague Castle. Part of the complex belonged to the Augustinian monastery of St Thomas, and a working community of friars still lives next door.

Brewing runs through the site's history. The monks made beer here for centuries, and the hotel's bar still draws on that tradition.

The interiors look to Czech Cubism and early modern design instead of copying the baroque around them. Original vaulting, frescoes and monastic stonework remain wherever the old structure survived. The hotel belongs to Marriott's Luxury Collection.

• Malá Strana
• Former monastery
• Czech Cubist design
• Luxury Collection