My travel companion and I arrived at the 130-room InterContinental Bordeaux – Le Grand Hôtel appropriately hungry. Bordeaux reportedly has the most restaurants per capita in France, and its star, Gordon Ramsay’s Le Pressoir d’Argent, is right in the hotel. The British chef has mastered haute French cooking, and the restaurant deserves the many accolades it’s received.

But food is not all that recommends the InterContinental, or Bordeaux. Another asset of both is harmonious architecture. In the 18th century, the city, then France’s largest port, underwent a construction boom; of its many neoclassical buildings from this period, the templelike opera house ranks among the finest. With statues of muses lining its roof, it stands across Place de la Comédie from the graceful building now housing the InterContinental. The opera’s architect also designed the hotel, originally conceived as a private mansion.

By the 1990s, black soot and grime covered much of the elegant architecture. Since then, the city has sandblasted limestone façades, banned traffic from much of downtown and lined the Garonne River with gardens and bike paths. The ultramodern Cité du Vin, a museum devoted to wine, opened in 2016, bringing Bordeaux firmly into the 21st century.