GombitHotel

Class: First

Style: Modern design

Rooms: 13

We could all learn a trick or two from Italy when it comes to integrating modern design into ancient and historic environs. Bergamo, in northern Lombardy, is perhaps typically Italian in that it’s oriented around a central old town, whose stone structures are six, seven, eight centuries old. And inside one of those ancient buildings, like it’s the most natural thing in the world, is the GombitHotel, an extremely stylish, extremely contemporary, and very Italian boutique hotel.

Right next door is the thirteenth-century watchtower from which it takes its name, the Torre del Gombito. But inside the hotel it’s the twentieth century all the way, the occasional original rough-hewn stone wall notwithstanding. The look is somewhere between art museum and furniture showroom — it’s impossible to look in any direction without one’s eyes alighting on a piece of art, a masterpiece of Italian design, or merely some entertaining object.

The thirteen rooms are stark and stylish, with inventive layouts that make the most of the modestly sized spaces and the challenging forms of the four floors of the historical structure. And the public spaces are no less inviting, from the library to the Tower Lounge restaurant. In the end the character of the place is humble and unpretentious — an appealing attitude for such a powerfully well-conceived hotel.