With one of the great locations on the Ringstrasse, just across from the Musikverein and a minute on foot from the Opera, the Grand Hotel Wien (the first luxury hotel in Vienna) rose to new splendor in the early 1990s. The interior has a palatial feel, thanks to its exquisite fabrics and rare antiques, and the rooms are elegant, with dark-wood walls and pastel accents. Three restaurants—Le Ciel, Unkai, and the Grand Café—offer Viennese, Japanese, and European culinary delights, and an additional boon here is the adjoining Ringstrassen-Galerien shopping mall connected to the hotel by a glass bridge. Pros: great restaurants in-house; good shopping next door. Cons: desk staff can be haughty.
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