Monasteries are redesigned into luxury hotels without losing their spiritual touch

Mystery and history mix at these renovated hotels. Photo by Remus Pereni.

In recent years, many monasteries and convents have been reborn as hotels so luxuriously appointed that you might confess to feeling a little guilty about how their previous occupants had to live. But don’t fret. Many properties still remain close to their roots, offering less worldly appointments, helping nurture your spiritual needs while you travel, remaining tied into their natural surroundings.

“As we get more and more technologically advanced, we lose our connection to what is fundamentally who we are,” said Mina Chow, an architect and professor at the University of Southern California’s School of Architecture. “A lot of these buildings that are being converted maintain that connection to nature and to our humanity.”