Some might say it’s the quality of the bed and the bathroom that make a good hotel bedroom, others the décor or the size, but these factors often become insignificant if you’ve a great view from the window. Here are our Top 10 Rooms with a View.

Casal de Loivos, Douro Valley (featured on the Valley of Gold walk). So magnificent is the view from this 500-year-old manor house that the BBC ranked it one of the six best in the world. All the bedrooms open onto the terrace so that they can enjoy the wide panorama of the River Douro, which snakes between hills coated in immaculate rows of vines and olive trees.

 

Grand Hotel, Jura (featured on the Lake Geneva to Lake Neuchâtel walk). If the wonderful Lake Geneva to Lake Neuchâtel walk doesn’t leave you wanting to explore deeper into the Alps on your next holiday, then the view from this hotel, the last on the holiday, certainly will. From your balcony the views stretch for miles across the plain to the Mont Blanc Massif beyond. Delicious as the food is, you probably won’t want to linger too long over dinner so that you can return to your room and watch Mont Blanc glow pink under the setting sun.
 

Can Xiquet, Catalonia (featured on the From the Pyrenees to the Sea walk). This is a hotel of 4-star standard, with views to match. At night, the vista from your huge bedroom window is spectacular enough, with lights twinkling around the Bay of Roses in the distance. In daylight, however, the view is magnificent, with vineyards climbing up the slopes towards France on one side, and the vast patchwork that is northern Catalonia stretching towards the sparkling blue sea in the other.
 

Hotel Inntaler Hof, Tyrol (featured on The Leutasch Valley walk and in our skiing programme). There are not many views that can boast of being equally as impressive in winter as in summer, but this one does. Upgrade to one of the bedrooms at the front of the hotel and you can enjoy a far-reaching view down the Inn Valley, framed on either side by majestic peaks.

 

Pensione Bencistà, Tuscany (featured on the From Bologna to Florence walk). Admittedly this is a view from a dining room, not a bedroom, but it is too good to omit from our Top 10 Rooms with a View. The Bencistà is a grand 14th-century villa in the hills just north of Florence, Italy’s greatest art city. To reach it, you will have covered some 100 kilometres since leaving Bologna, and now your final destination and the huge dome of the cathedral are so close you could almost reach out and touch them. If one view could encapsulate the magic of Italy, it is this.
 

Hotel Hellnar, Iceland (featured on the Iceland’s Striking West walk). Gazing out to sea is enjoyable enough, mesmerising even, especially when the waves are glittering in the sunlight or are topped with white foam on stormy days, but what makes the view from the Hotel Hellnar’s sun terrace, restaurant and front bedrooms (which are well worth upgrading to) one that you will keep coming back to is the very real chance of spotting a whale breaching. And that makes for a view that is definitely worth talking about.

 

Annie’s Farmhouse, Central Switzerland. Spend a week at this traditional Swiss farmhouse and the Brienzer Rothorn will be a constant companion. It is there when you draw back the curtains in the morning, when you can watch the clouds lifting from the peak; and, after a day of exploring or walking, you can gaze at its slopes as you enjoy a beer on the veranda, knowing that, behind it, hidden from view, are mighty peaks such as the Mönch and the Eiger.
 
 

Dos Aguas, La Palma. This is one of several characterful self-catering cottages we offer on La Isla Bonita (‘The Beautiful Island’). Staring across the seemingly never-ending expanse of the Atlantic Ocean, it is hard not to feel humbled. Dramatic in stormy weather, when white horses dance across the waves, this view is at its best on clear, sunny days, when you can see the neighbouring islands of Tenerife and La Gomera across the glittering sea.

 

Hotel César, Provence (featured on the Hill-Top Villages of the Luberon walk). The Hotel César is in the quintessential Provençal village of Bonnieux, whose houses seemingly clamber one on top of the other up the hill on which it perches. From its lofty position, the village – and the hotel – commands sweeping views which stretch for miles across the undulating plain, a patchwork of sun-drenched vineyards, olive groves, orchards and expanses of wild herbs. As with many of those in our Top 10 Rooms with a View, it’s the sort of panorama that makes you feel that all is well with the world.
 

Hotel Playa Sol, Catalonia (featured on the Collioure to Cadaqués and From the Pyrenees to the Sea walks). Translated literally from the Spanish, Hotel Playa Sol means ‘Hotel Beach Sun’, and this sums up the vista from the sea view rooms (available as an upgrade). On a sunny day – something of which there is no shortage – you can sit on your balcony with a glass of sparkling cava and gaze across the glittering sea to the whitewashed houses on the other side of the little bay as they bask in the sunshine against a bright blue sky. No wonder the hotel is at the end of not one, but two, walking holidays!

If our Top 10 Rooms with a View has inspired you, please contact our friendly reservations team for more information.