A hotel room can be judged on thread count, on the size of the bathtub, on how quickly room service answers the phone. But for a lot of travellers, none of that matters as much as what's on the other side of the window. These five properties have built their reputation on exactly that.
Set on the banks of Lake Pichola in Rajasthan, The Oberoi Udaivilas occupies roughly 30 acres (121,000 square metres) of landscaped gardens on what was once the 200-year-old hunting ground of the Maharana of Mewar. Its domes, courtyards and walkways are modelled on traditional Mewari palace architecture. The 87 rooms and suites range from deluxe categories to the Kohinoor Suite, and many open onto the lake or the 16th-century City Palace across the water, with select suites featuring their own temperature-controlled plunge pools. Two swimming pools sit within the grounds, one running directly alongside the lake, and the adjoining 20-acre wildlife conservatory is home to spotted deer, wild boar and free-roaming peacocks. The hotel is reached by boat, and evening cruises on Lake Pichola are a signature activity.
A short distance away on the same lake sits a very different kind of view: one from the middle of the water itself. Taj Lake Palace occupies the four-acre island of Jag Niwas, built in white marble between 1743 and 1746 for Maharana Jagat Singh II as a royal summer retreat. It passed into disrepair before the Taj Group restored and reopened it as a hotel in 1971. The palace holds 66 rooms and 17 suites, several named for the views they offer — the Aravalli Darshan suite looks onto the Aravalli hills, while the Jag Mandir Darshan suite faces the neighbouring Jagmandir Palace. It's accessible only by boat from the City Palace jetty, and its film credentials include a starring role in the 1983 Bond film Octopussy.
For altitude rather than water, there's Wildflower Hall, an Oberoi resort set at 2,500 metres (8,250 feet) above sea level in Himachal Pradesh, roughly a 45-minute drive from Shimla. The 23-acre property sits on land once owned by Lord Kitchener, former Commander-in-Chief of the British Army in India, and its 81 rooms and four suites keep something of that colonial-era character, with teak floors and hand-knotted rugs. Every room looks out over cedar and pine forest towards the Himalayan range, with the outlook said to be at its best when snow settles in January. The hotel runs entirely on hydro-electric power and offers treks, mountain biking and white-water rafting on the nearby Sutlej river as ways to get closer to the landscape it overlooks.
On the other side of the world, this Sicilian hotel has been welcoming guests since 1873, built into the cliffs beside Taormina's ancient Greek Theatre. It has 71 rooms and suites across the main building and the neighbouring Villa Flora, and the view from most of them takes in Taormina's terracotta rooftops, the coastline below, and Mount Etna smoking away in the distance. Guests can take a short shuttle or a funicular down to its sister property, Belmond Villa Sant'Andrea, a former 19th-century private residence with its own private beach.
For a skyline rather than a landscape, there's The Ritz-Carlton Hong Kong, which occupies floors 102 to 118 of the International Commerce Centre on the West Kowloon waterfront — making it the highest hotel in the world by elevation. Its 312 rooms look out over Victoria Harbour and the lit-up towers of Hong Kong Island, and the top-floor Ozone bar carries that view even further into the evening. Below the guest floors, the hotel also holds several Michelin-starred restaurants and a rooftop pool.