Hotel Antares is the best-looking small hotel in Bratislava, appropriate in scale and coziness to count as a true boutique hotel.

The 31-room Botel Gracia's dated modernist style is so exquisite that we feel the need to beg the management never to renovate.

The Botel Marina, one of Bratislava's two hotels-on-a-boat, features cramped, though nautically charming, quarters.

A Jewish "penzion" located just outside of the Old Town, Chez David has eight clean and simple rooms.

Slovak construction company Doprastav operates this large, imposing dormitory-style hotel with 30 room "sets."

Across the street from the Presidential Palace and a short walk from the heart of Staré Mesto, Downtown Backpacker's Hostel is a small hotel-hostel hybrid.

Hotel Perugia is one of Bratislava's most charming hotels, a 14-room property on a cute, quiet alley in the thick of Staré Mesto.

Hotel Tatra is an 86-room business-class hotel—one of many in Bratislava that makes the grade in generic terms but doesn't offer much in the way of charm or design.

Spend a few minutes at the Arcus and that all-important truism is made abundantly clear: It's the management, so often, that makes the hotel.

The Ibis Bratislava Centrum's 120 rooms are perfectly nice, and the location (just outside Bratislava's bewitching Staré Mesto) is fab.

Old City is an adequate, tourist-class hotel, with 15 rooms perched off Michalska in Staré Mesto.

Upstairs from the rather swank Restaurant Carabic is the very simple Pension Carabic.

Pension Gremium is a tiny five-room pension located two floors above the Gremium Restaurant and Bar in the heart of Staré Mesto.

The atmosphere at Pension Vilo is more relaxed than your average pension, and the overall effect is reminiscent of a home stay.