While monasteries have always been obliged by the Rule of St Benedict to provide shelter to weary travellers, secular times have brought a heightened sense of hospitality to the halls of these hallowed cloisters. For those devoted to all things hedonistic in these temporal times, former monasteries and convents provide heavenly luxury for those blessed with the means to stay at these divine hotels.
While much of this Tuscan castle's history has been buried in the past, it is believed it was once the family home of the not-so-angelic Pope Alexander VII.
When the Bishop of Cuzco built the Seminary of San Antonio Abad, it is certain he had no idea that five centuries later it would be converted into a luxury hotel.
The golden glow of a polished copper tunnel is not the usual way you enter a gothic church, unless of course you're a guest at the Netherland's Kruisheren Hotel in Maastricht.
When Hamlet ordered "get thee to a nunnery", we doubt he imagined the supreme luxury of La Locanda Delle Donne Monache at Maratea on the Southern Italian coast.
At the foot of Prague Castle, a 13th century haven of monastic devotion is now a 21st Century luxury hotel thanks to the creative stylings of Rocco Forte's Director of Design , his sister, Olga Polizzi.
