The Westin - Luxury in the heart of Nanjing

We'd landed ourselves in a rather swish hotel perched on top of a massive shopping mall in central Nanjing — which, we had to admit, was a brilliant bit of urban planning. The sheer convenience of it was almost ridiculous: hungry at midnight? There were restaurants aplenty just a lift ride away. Need new socks? Three levels of shops below us. We couldn't help but appreciate the efficiency of it all, even if it did feel decidedly unmoored from any traditional sense of "place".

The room itself was spacious and genuinely comfortable — proper luxury touches without feeling overwrought. But the real star was the view: our window looked straight out over a serene lake, glassy and still in the morning light, with tree-lined shores that made you briefly forget you were in the middle of a sprawling city. We found ourselves lingering with our coffee at the window for longer than we'd intended, watching the light shift across the water and the occasional jogger pass along the lakeside path below.