The Best Boutique Hotels in Salta, Argentina

This modern hotel towers over Salta, but nods to tradition with its local furnishings and the artworks in its understated rooms. Suites add sitting areas. After a busy day ticking the many sights of Salta off your list, head to the in-house health club for a few laps in the indoor heated pool or a steam in the sauna. There’s also a piano bar. With the palm tree-lined Plaza 9 de Julio a five-minute walk away, you’re well placed to visit major sights such as the Museo de Arqueología de Alta Montaña, notable for housing the mummified Inca children discovered by scientists in 1999 at the Llullaillaco volcano.

Extravagance and comfort meet at this inviting hotel where rooms and public spaces cocoon you with their warm parquet floors, statues, plump cushions, carved stone fireplaces and twinkling chandeliers. The walled gardens hold a gracefully curved swimming pool with wooden loungers and seating for an al fresco morning coffee and croissant. The art nouveau Museo de Bellas Artes is a couple of blocks away, highlighting 19th-century Spanish and Argentine artists as well as pre-Columbian works.

On an everyday street lined with restaurants, bars and shops, a couple of blocks from the Parque 20 de Febrero, this genteel, wine-themed boutique hotel features an impressive collection of Argentinian wines. Wine-related decor in unfussy tile-floored rooms includes prints and rich, red walls. Suites add whirlpool tubs, sitting areas and/or patios. The pretty garden features an outdoor splash pool with a terrace and sunloungers. Breakfast includes home-made preserves such as pumpkin and yam.

Spacious, colorful rooms sleeping two to four, made cozier with striped rugs and cushions created from local textiles, add charm to this simply styled hotel close to the Plaza 9 de Julio, a pretty spot for a walk. There’s a shared kitchen painted in vibrant lime green for fixing up your morning latte, and tiled communal spaces for sinking into a sofa and catching up on your holiday reading.

Hotel Colonial Salta has a prime location on Plaza 9 de Julio, a 16th-century plaza named after the date of Independence Day. The lively main square of Salta, this relaxed hotel in a late 19th-century colonial-style building puts guests an easy three-minute walk from the 19th-century Salta Cathedral. Bright rooms with French windows leading onto terraces; upgrades offer views of the lovely gardens or onto the square. If you like to tinkle the ivories, there’s a lounge with a piano just waiting to be played.

Surrounded by shops and museums, this stylish and serene boutique hotel is five minutes’ walk from Salta Cathedral. Bathed in white, rooms wow with a combination of ornate plasterwork and mirrors above pretty iron canopy beds. Upgraded rooms feature balconies with garden views. Nibble on flaky croissants and fresh fruit in the elegant dining room with a blue-and-white tiled floor before doing a lap or two in the outdoor pool set among decking and tropical foliage.