Hotel Belvedere Ohrid

Pine scents the air at Hotel Belvedere, set among the trees of Sveti Stefan a hundred metres from the shore of Lake Ohrid. The lake is one of Europe's oldest, and the hotel's terraces and many of its 88 rooms look straight across it toward the Galichica hills. Rooms come in four grades, from double and twin to triple, studio and suite, each with a private terrace facing either water or forest. The triple rooms run 25 to 30 m², decorated in burgundy tones with air conditioning, minibar and satellite television. It is a four-star property, four kilometres from Ohrid's old town. Guests eat across three restaurants, from an in-house dining room to two more with local menus, and can settle after dinner in the piano lobby bar, its instruments and antiques set against a wood-panelled lobby. A small antique shop off the lobby sells period pieces picked up around the region, giving the entrance a lived-in, collected feel rather than a hotel-chain sameness. Outside, the hotel arranges boat tours on the lake and ATV routes through Galicica National Park, along with wine tastings and guided tours of the area. Free parking and Wi-Fi are standard throughout. You can hear birdsong from the terraces most mornings, backed by the smell of pine rather than traffic.