Cool hotels and hot watch culture around the globe.

Switzerland

Accommodation options in Switzerland’s Watch Valley have long lagged behind the lavish craftsmanship of the region’s workshops.

In 2021, though, you’ll be able to check into Audemars Piguet’s Hôtel des Horlogers, a stunning 50-room complex designed by wunderkind Danish architect Bjarke Ingels. The resort will feature the architect’s signature playful touch; its roof doubles as a ramp connecting the floors, down which guests can ski before continuing onto the piste.

Audemars tapped Ingels to re-imagine its fusty former namesake, as well as to re-create its archive as a custom museum next door.

The undertaking was more than just a regular gig for Ingels, per Audemars historian Michael Friedman, who worked closely with him at every stage.

“Bjarke can tell you as much about the wristwatch he has on as any collector in the world,” Friedman says. The goal of the museum’s design — creating an airy, light-soaked building among tight constraints — proved arduous. “The challenge was temperature, given our fierce, long winters, then dust and humidity control, as all the watchmakers will be working inside the museum.”

The result is the all-glass La Maison des Fondateurs: an enormous, spiral-shaped building embedded in the landscape, resembling a spaceship emerging from the hills.

France

Next year, LVMH will debut the Cheval Blanc, its long-planned five-star hotel inside the erstwhile Samaritaine department store.

The group’s first urban outpost for the brand will contend with the just-reopened Hôtel de Crillon as the most luxurious hotel in Paris. Expect lashings of luxe touches that embody l’art de recevoir.

Once you’ve booked a suite, stroll over to the toniest square in the city: the Place Vendôme, built on the order of Louis XIV.

Noteworthy residents include Van Cleef & Arpels, which has a square-side boutique as well as its own watchmaking school, L’École des Arts Joailliers.

At the south end of the square, Breguet’s flagship boutique displays an astonishing archive, showcasing some of the brand’s most beloved pieces, like workshop founder Abraham-Louis Breguet’s first four-minute tourbillon, No. 1176.

Germany

The Taschenbergpalais Kempinski is one of Germany’s most luxurious hotels, housed in the rococo palace the former elector of Saxony built for his favorite mistress.

Located in Dresden — the city nicknamed the Florence of the North for its cultural assets — the palace was all but leveled in World War II.

The rubble here was painstakingly renovated into a splurge-worthy hotel in the 1990s, and has recently undergone a major overhaul.

The hotel is the perfect base to explore nearby Glashütte, once the country’s watchmaking hub.

Recently, Glashütte has been revitalized via the arrival of Nomos Glashütte, founded by photographer and timepiece aficionado Roland Schwertner.

The workshops, housed in the former train station, are open to tourists.

Washington, DC

Luxury in Washington, DC, has long been synonymous with generic, if comfortable, hotels — a maxim that Hong Kong-based luxury hotelier Rosewood aimed to shatter when it shuttered its US capital outpost last year.

The major reboot, just completed, includes the sexy rooftop bar Cut Above and a half-dozen townhouse-style suites that will open next year.

While here, visitors will be able to make sorties to the Mall to explore the city’s enviable hoard of history-making jewelry and watches.

At the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, look for the Hope Diamond, donated by Harry Winston in 1958 and once worn by Sun King Louis XIV.

At the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, you’ll be able to see the Omega Speedmaster Neil Armstrong wore on the Apollo 11 mission to the moon in 1969.

Italy

Hospitality is an Italian forte — Sir Rocco Forte, to be precise. In early October, the luxury hotelier — brother of designer Olga Polizzi — added to his suite of ultra-luxe hotels in Rome with the five-room Rocco Forte House, tucked into an 18th-century palazzo near the Spanish Steps.

He promises visitors will live like Roman aristocrats for a few days.

Saunter down the stairs to the luxury-laden shopping hub in the city center.

The standout in the neighborhood is Bulgari’s Via dei Condotti complex.

Alongside the brand’s global flagship, you’ll find the New Curiosity Shop, a quirky concept store inspired by founder Sotirio Bulgari’s first Roman workshop.