Hotel Londra Palace, Venice, Italy
With its 100 windows overlooking the San Marco basin, charmed location, and elegantly decorated 19th-century Biedermeier-style rooms, the views at the intimate Londra Palace (inside and out) have captivated artistic types like Tchaikovsky, Gabriele D'Annunzio and Jorge Luis Borges for the past 150 years.
Piazza San Marco, the vaporetti and gondolas are a stone's throw away, and even if your room overlooks the roofs and church towers rather than the lagoon, the vistas are no less inspiring.