Online - July 15, 2006

Travel: Pillow Talk

The Best Hotel Bedrooms

What’s better than a big, beautiful hotel boudoir? Um, nothing. So we slept our way around the world (anything for research) to find the very best bedrooms and amenities.

Best Rooms with a View: A tie — between the Mandarin Oriental, San Francisco, for Golden Gate views, and the George V honeymoon suite, Paris, where you can gaze upon the Eiffel Tower from three (three!) terraces.

Best Pillows: At the Cotton House resort, Mustique, you can choose from more than ten options, including full body feathers and half moons.

Best Escape: There are fancier hotels in SoBe, but rooms 283 and 382 at the end of the hall at budget Catalina Hotel insulate you from the mad Miami party outside. (Love the giant Tempurpedic mattresses.)

Best Morning Read: The Connaught, London, offers more than 100 daily newspapers (in languages you never knew existed) and delivers them in customized bags.

Best Breakfast in Bed: The Peninsula, Hong Kong, serves thick, syrupy waffles or a traditional Chinese congee (rice porridge) and dim sum. Outstanding presentation — and available 24/7.

Best Reason to Stay in Bed (Besides the Obvious): At Cowley Manor, Gloucestershire, England, you get a giant flat-screen TV, Nakamichi stereo, and 300 DVDs and CDs in the library. Surround sound never felt so good.

Best Reason to Get out of Bed: The concierge at the Amanjena, Marrakech, will arrange a hiking outing to the High Atlas Mountains, where you can visit Berber villages, buy carpets, and feast on tagines in a local house.

Best Bedtime Snacks: The decadent chocolate crispy bonbons from the tiny kitchen at Gran Hotel Son Net, Majorca, are the perfect buenas noches.

Best Take It with You: Insiders know that the Four Seasons sells its famously perfect beds and linens. (Just contact any hotel; beds are not online.) Sorry, butler and fresh-squeezed blood orange juice not included.

Sweet, suite dreams.