Extraordinary places, quietly curated.

Louis XVI grandeur facing the Tuileries, with a Philippe Starck hand.

The world's great Impressionist collection inside a Beaux-Arts station.

A 33rd-floor washi-and-stone lobby floating above the Imperial Palace.

Six alleys of tiny bars, most seating six people at a squeeze.

Thousands of vermilion gates climbing a forested mountain.

A discreet TriBeCa townhouse with a lantern-lit underground pool.

Art Deco Mayfair at its most self-assured, since 1856.

A 2,000-year-old dome with a hole open to the weather.

Gaudí's unfinished basilica, where the light does the work.

Twenty acres of walled gardens inside the ramparts.

Cathedral, mosque, museum, mosque again — 1,500 years of it.

Emerald terraces cut by hand into a river valley.

Entered across a bridge into a lotus pond, above the Ayung River.

Enrique Olvera's mole madre, aged well past a thousand days.

Two glass cable cars to a granite dome above the bay.

Milk-blue geothermal water in a black lava field.

Sheer cliffs, waterfalls and seals in a rain-fed fiord.

The direct route up Table Mountain — steep, sunny and unforgettable.

Pillowed glass windows above the harbour, atop a converted grain silo.

Vineyard lunch on a terrace facing the Simonsberg.

A restored 18th-century house on Praça Luís de Camões with the city's best rooftop.

José Avillez's two-star room, and the making of modern Portuguese cooking.

The Sersale family's villa-turned-hotel, still the coast's benchmark.

Eight kilometres of cliff path, five hundred metres above the sea.

Whitewashed cave suites cut into the caldera wall.

A catamaran along the volcano rim, hot springs and a swim at Red Beach.

A 16th-century palazzo on the Grand Canal, with Tiepolo frescoes intact.

Eight thousand square metres of gold mosaic, best seen when it is lit.

Red velvet, oil paintings and the opera house across the road.

The Habsburg collection — the world's finest Bruegel room among it.

Thirty-eight rooms inside a Moorish palace, within the Tivoli gardens.

The restaurant that rewrote what Northern European cooking could be.

A red-brick grande dame where the Amstel meets the canal ring.

Rembrandt's Night Watch, Vermeer's light, and a building worth the ticket alone.

All-suite colonial landmark, restored and still the city's grandest address.

Supertrees, a cooled cloud forest and a nightly light show over the bay.

A riverside hotel since 1876, and still the standard others are judged by.

The reclining Buddha, and the birthplace of Thai massage.

Quiet luxury in Gangnam, with a 76th-floor city view from the lounge.

The Joseon dynasty's main palace, under the granite ridge of Bugaksan.

Low-slung on Campbells Cove, looking directly at the Opera House.

Six kilometres of clifftop path past four beaches and two ocean pools.

Belle Époque Recoleta — Louis XV furniture, Egyptian cotton, real silverware.

One of the three finest acoustics in the world, and a tour that proves it.

The parrilla that turned Argentine steak into a pilgrimage.

Zermatt's original grand hotel, with horse-drawn transfers from the station.

A cog railway to 3,089m, facing the Matterhorn the whole way up.

The sail on its own island, and still the city's defining address.

A Michelin-starred tasting menu served against the aquarium wall.

The unmarked door that started Amsterdam's cocktail habit.

Gilded spires and mirrored glass, and the Emerald Buddha at the heart of it.

Sixty-three floors up, with the Chao Phraya turning gold beneath you.

Three Michelin stars in a gilded Grand Siècle room off the Champs-Élysées.

A ryokan stacked seventeen floors high, with hot-spring water beneath it.

The Lost in Translation hotel, high above Shinjuku with the city at your feet.

A cliff carved into terraces, with a lift down to its own beach.

Grilled mozzarella on lemon leaves, reached only by boat.

The Terrace of Infinity — marble busts, and the whole Gulf of Salerno below.

Rome's only three-Michelin-star table, above the whole city.

Two-star cooking with no theatre and no weaknesses.

Three-star British cooking, dressed in wit rather than gold.

A calligraphy-wrapped torus that is Dubai's best building.

A private pool among the dunes, forty minutes from Downtown.