San Francisco has no shortage of grand hotels, but Palace Hotel occupies an entirely different category: it is the original, the one that set the standard for luxury on the Pacific coast when it first opened in 1875. The glass-domed Garden Court — a sky-lit atrium of such soaring beauty that it has been a San Francisco landmark since it was rebuilt after the 1906 earthquake — remains one of the city's most iconic settings. Sunday brunch here is still, as it has been for generations, among the great rituals of the city.

Beyond its famous atrium, the Palace delivers the full luxury-hotel experience with confidence: rooms and suites blending Gilded Age grandeur with modern comfort, a heated indoor pool beneath a vaulted sky-lit ceiling, and a fitness centre built for serious use. Two dining options — the renowned Garden Court for formal occasions, and the storied Pied Piper bar with its magnificent Maxfield Parrish mural — mean guests are unlikely to venture far for dinner.

The location puts guests within walking distance of Union Square's designer boutiques, the cable car lines, the Ferry Building Farmers Market, and the Financial District. For Spellbound clients visiting San Francisco for the first time or the fiftieth, the Palace delivers something no other city hotel quite can: the feeling that history is woven into every stone, and that staying here is, in itself, a piece of the city's story.