As befits a classic hotel in the city that styled the modern American dream, the Peninsula unites an industrial facade with an interior heavy on velvet curtains and beige brocade.

Book a North Grand Deluxe room, with views of the Chicago Water Tower; then try the gentleman’s tea – mini lamb chops and burgers instead of cakes – before visiting the paean to consumerism that is Chicago’s Magnificent Mile. Doubles from £225, room only (00 1 312 337 2888, www.chicago.peninsula.com).

GRAND HOTEL EUROPE, St Petersburg

It’s all about Euro-excess, locally expressed, in the city built by Peter the Great – a Tsar obsessed by the West. After marvelling at the Romanov dynasty’s fabulous art haul in the Hermitage, you need rarefied lodgings. Enter Grand Hotel Europe, with its good-enough-to-eat Italianate exterior.

The Sunday Times Travel Magazine - December

How to go hip in New York

Herbert Ypma, of Hip Hotel style, has teamed up with Virgin to bring out the best in hotels wordwide

• 20 classic New York stories

• New York's new cultural quarter

The world's coolest hotel rooms

Bill Tikos, editor of trend-setting blog, the cool hunter, picks his top ten sexy hotel rooms

• The A-listers' guide to luxury holidays

The world's 10 sexiest hotel rooms?

Dress up, canoodle in your private infinity pool, play Rapunzel or hole up in a naughty £99 B&B

• The world's coolest hotel rooms

Related Internet Links

Related Links

• The world's coolest hotel rooms

• The world's 10 best one-room hotels

Tchaikovsky spent his honeymoon here; now owner Orient-Express has lavished millions – hence the imperial-French decor. Bitter-white winter outside? Settle down at the Caviar Bar and summon the vodka sommelier. Doubles from £365, B&B (0845 077 2222, www.grand-hotel-europe.com).

HOTEL DE RUSSIE, Rome

There are choices to weigh up outside the 19th-century frontage. Will you turn right for the Piazza de Popolo and its Caravaggios? Or left for the shopping of the vias del Corso and Babuino? If there are better spots in Rome, we’ve not found them.

Though it’s a classic, Hotel de Russie wears its history lightly – the white interiors mix marble and contemporary art, while its fulcrum is a garden with tranquillity and enchantment amid jasmine, rose and orange trees. Doubles from £335, B&B (00 39 06 328881, www.hotelderussie.it).

RAFFLES, Beijing

There’s not a single significant moment in Beijing’s past century that this hotel hasn’t witnessed: foreign dignitaries filled its tea room in the 1920s; Mao Zedong held the inauguration dinner of the People’s Republic here; and in 2008, the IOC took over the hotel during the Olympics.

Its location, off Tiananmen Square, makes it a city classic. Rooms are cruiseliner luxe, with all the trimmings you’d expect of a Far Eastern five-star. Doubles from £141 (00 86 10 6526 3388, www.raffles.com).

DUKES HOTEL, London

A rhinestone’s throw from the Ritz, but without a hint of its showiness – red-brick, railinged Dukes Hotel boasts intimacy to match its centrality. If it seemed tired in recent times, that’s been remedied by new owner Gordon Campbell Gray, a man with a knack for fashionably refreshing without exorcising the original spirit. That means out with the frumpy upholstery, in with a clean classicism.

The world-famous, yet discreet, Martini bar should be on everyone’s social itinerary. Actually, no it shouldn’t. Doubles from £241, B&B (020 7491 4840, www.dukeshotel.com).

LE BRISTOL, Paris

Less brash than its five-star counterparts, this homage to good taste has a wood-panelled, Michelin-starred restaurant, gilded bedrooms and a serene courtyard garden – perfect for sipping fizz on spring days.

Ask for one of the deluxe rooms with rooftop balconies overlooking the Eiffel Tower. And when you’ve admired the view, head out to spend: the hotel is on one of Paris’s poshest shopping streets, Faubourg St-Honoré. Doubles from £580, room only (00 33 1 5343 4300, www.hotel-bristol.com).

MOUNT NELSON HOTEL, Cape Town

‘The Nellie’ is an appealing anachronism – a huge colonial slab painted Barbara Cartland pink, cocooned in exotic gardens from a modern society moving like quicksilver. Unveiled for intrepid travellers around the turn of the 20th century, it’s as waxed as Lord Kitchener’s moustache, and as august as Churchill, who stayed on many an occasion.

Watching clouds curl over Table Mountain, as you lounge by the pool, is unforgettable – as are the hefty afternoon teas, and the stars of the African sky over the terrace of Planet Champagne bar, looking down on you twirling your drink. Doubles from £430, B&B (00 27 21 4831000, www.mountnelson.co.za).

Times recommends

• 10 of Rough Guides' best images
• How to do Florence for free
• The UK and Ireland's 25 best Christmas events