The Best Hotels and Resorts in Europe and the UK: The Gold List 2024

"It’s hard to put a finger on exactly why going through the gates to the garden of Palácio Príncipe Real feels quite so much like arriving home. On the face of it, this is an imposingly grand affair: a renovation of an exquisite 1877 pastel-pink home set around a soaring atrium; a garden oasis in Lisbon’s smartest quarter, where the Teixeira da Mota family once hosted legendary parties. And yet, from the red Renault 4 in the cobblestone courtyard to the proper English breakfast tea and borderline kitsch runner ducks around the place, there’s a cosy, unpretentious whimsy to life here. A lot of that comes from its English owners, Gail and Miles Curley, who rescued the tired building from an ugly office conversion in 2015, embarking on a challenging renovation just as Lisbon was starting to boom. They are charming and self-effacing hosts, clearly in love with their very personal project, but wont to reference Fawlty Towers while making sure it’s nothing of the sort. One of 25, the garden room we stayed in is sublime, with ornate ceiling-height blue tiles and a roll-top copper bath next to the old fireplace. It looks out over a miniature Eden of palms, jacaranda, and lemon trees toward the pool, lit up come evening as a chatty cocktail hour begins outside the main house. Now and then, Isabel Amaral, an etiquette coach who grew up here with her seven siblings, will drop by, wowed by the restoration, but perhaps not the only one for whom Palácio Príncipe Real feels like a homecoming. From $475. —Toby Skinner" - CNT Editors