W Istanbul

The W is the only entry in this batch that does not have a pool — and it is the only one in this batch where that’s not really the point. It opened in 2008 inside the Akaretler Sıraevler, a row of mid-19th-century houses originally built to lodge palace staff for nearby Dolmabahçe, and the conversion is the show. Five-storey terraces of pastel stone, plum-coloured front doors, a courtyard between the buildings that fills with bar crowd by ten.

Spa Soul is the daycation reason. A traditional hammam in white marble, a small pool fed by a heated cascade rather than for swimming, sauna, and a treatment menu that runs from 50-minute oil massages to a four-hand çifteli ritual. Day-pass pricing is reported around €80 weekdays for hammam-and-spa-area access; treatments are priced à la carte and stack quickly to the €130 mark for a half-afternoon.

W’s downstairs is louder than its sister Marriotts on principle. Spend the day in the quiet of the spa, then change for dinner at Okka or one of the courtyard restaurants the neighbours run. The Akaretler block has slowly turned into one of Istanbul’s better small shopping streets — Beymen, Vakko, the original Hakkasan-style noodle bar across the way. Make the spa the framing, not the entire afternoon.