Hotel Granvia Osaka

The River Head Lounge on the 19th-floor lobby sets an elegant-if-corporate tone, but the soaring glass ceilings and excellent city views are worth a peek. Dining at the Grancia ranges from Fleuve's award-winning French-Italian dishes to Kiryu's sizzling teppanyaki performances and Ukihashi's traditional Japanese breakfasts. The Granvia Floor comes with its own exclusive lounge stocked with complimentary drinks and snacks – a genuinely useful perk when you need respite from the station-side madness below. There's also a fitness centre and a small menu of massage services.

Standard Floor rooms are functional with a long, narrow layout. They are a little outdated, but the beds are comfortable. Upgrade to the Granvia Floor, however, and you'll find yourself in a completely different hotel: contemporary dark-hued interiors, textured walls, proper city views through oversized windows, rain showers, separate soaking tubs, Nespresso machines, and Herman Miller work chairs. They make all the difference for genuinely settling in and finding your feet in the city.

The hotel's genius lies less in what it offers and more in what it accesses. Osaka Station City wraps around you with department stores, underground food halls, and enough retail therapy to exhaust any credit card. Universal Studios Japan is ten minutes by train, Osaka Castle half an hour away, whilst Kyoto, Kobe and Nara are all easy day trips. The station's maze-like connections mean you're never more than minutes from wherever you're headed next – which in a city this sprawling, is worth its weight in yen.