Grand Hotel Tremezzo

The panoramic views around this hotel, on the shore between Lenno and Griante, melted even Darth Vader's heart. In Attack of the Clones, the young Anakin Skywalker woos Princess Padmé, both of them in a daze, brains blasted by the snow-topped, sprawling green of the mountains all about, and the clusters of pretty gardens nearby. This exceptionally beautiful old villa, with a floating pool and an elegant restaurant (try the lake-bass carpaccio with cumin broth), has a feel of the most romantic European cities about it. A touch of Budapest and Paris and Vienna; high corridors and ceremonious butlers, and – seemingly perpetually parked outside – a Seventies Alfa Romeo Duetto Spider in the same damson red as the velvet in the bar.