The Mediterranean in the world's best hotels, 2026

Conde Nast Traveler has published its 2026 Readers' Choice Awards, the best hotels in the world as chosen by almost 800,000 of its readers. We did not vote, and we have not stayed in all of them. What interests us is where the Mediterranean lands when the whole planet is counted. This year it lands high.

Italy leads. Passalacqua, the villa above Moltrasio on Lake Como, comes second in the world and stands as the highest-placed hotel anywhere around our sea, a result it has grown used to since it opened in 2022. Behind it the pattern is familiar: the French Riviera at Saint-Tropez and Cannes, two Ottoman palaces on the Bosphorus, and the old city houses of Rome and Florence. Eight names in the global fifty sit on the Mediterranean.

The rest of the list travels, as it always does, to Chicago and Bangkok, to Kyoto, Dubai and the Amazon. Morocco shows its palace hotels, with La Mamounia in Marrakech at number fourteen and the Mandarin Oriental not far behind, the Mediterranean's North African shoulder. Greece, absent from the hotels list this year, took its honours in the separate resorts ranking instead. Here are the Mediterranean names, in the order they fall in the world.

1. Passalacqua, Lake Como. Italy, number two in the world. A villa of twenty-four rooms above Moltrasio, converted by the De Santis family behind the Grand Hotel Tremezzo and open only since 2022. It has already topped more than one global list.
2. Cheval Blanc Saint-Tropez. France, number ten. The LVMH maison at the quiet edge of Saint-Tropez, opening straight onto the sea.
3. Hotel Barriere Le Majestic, Cannes. France, number twelve. The white Belle Epoque landmark on the Croisette, a fixture of the festival since 1926.
4. Bvlgari Hotel Roma. Italy, number nineteen. The jeweller's Roman house on Piazza Augusto Imperatore, opened in 2023 beside the mausoleum of Augustus.
5. Raffles Istanbul. Turkey, number forty-two. High above the Bosphorus at Zorlu, Singaporean service carried to the straits.
6. Ciragan Palace Kempinski, Istanbul. Turkey, number forty-five. A nineteenth-century Ottoman palace on the water, a sultan's residence turned hotel. It is the building pictured above.
7. The St. Regis Florence. Italy, number forty-seven. A Renaissance palazzo on Piazza Ognissanti, looking across the Arno.
8. Il Sereno, Lake Como. Italy, number forty-nine. Patricia Urquiola's contemporary hotel on the quiet Torno shore, all green marble and glass.