Madurai, South India, India

Madurai’s long-established hotel benefits from an unrivalled location on its own exclusive hilltop surveying the city. Its centrepiece is a gracious colonial-era mansion that once belonged to a British textile mill manager. The rooms are large, with bay windows, wooden floorboards and verandahs looking across 62 acres of landscaped gardens to what must rank among the most distinctive skylines in Asia, dominated by the gopuram towers of the Meenakshi temple. Peacocks, monkeys and mongooses regularly appear on the lawn, and there’s a pleasant outdoor pool.