Best Hotels and Resorts in the World: The Gold List 2022
"Some large hotels can seem impersonal and lacking in character. Instead, The Ritz-Carlton, Abama—a monumental vision of faintly surreal, multilayered Moorish pink—feels more like a curious labyrinthine village; a place to get happily lost in, among all those palm trees, curving walkways, and aquamarine pools with sharp, dissonant angles. The sense of a total escape is helped by the fact that the hotel is a world unto itself: With views beyond the white-sand beach to the neighboring island of La Gomera, it is mostly surrounded by a golf course (owned separately), beyond which the volcanic Mount Teide looms ominously large. Flying and flopping may be unfashionable, but I can’t think of a better place to do just that of a European winter (Tenerife is T-shirt-warm all-year-round). There are more than eight restaurants and bars, including Michelin-starred Basque and Japanese fusion; the kids’ club, with art walls, is one of the biggest in Europe; and the spa takes opulent inspiration from Roman baths. But the joy here is just being: hiking along the rugged coast or floating from pool to pool, as the sun casts lines of shadows over pink stucco walls and eventually settles over the peaks of La Gomera. Doubles from $500. —David Moralejo" - CNT Editors
