Art Hotels · six hotels

The estate wall runs around the grounds, and where it drops toward the water the boundary becomes the shore of Lough Corrib itself. Stone gives way to reeds, then to open lake. The castle stands well back from that line, so the ground between them reads as one long approach rather than an edge.

Past the reeds the lake opens wide enough that the far bank is only a low grey line for much of the year. Wind arrives off it in long pushes. Small wooded islands sit out in the water, and the birds that use them are audible from the grounds long before anything is visible.

The building answers the lake with height. Windows on the upper floors are set to carry over the tree line, so the water is read from inside rather than walked to. At ground level the paths turn along the wall instead of crossing it.

Bring a warm layer you can put on outdoors: the grounds are open ground and the wind off the lake is steady.

A rainforest edge, not a fence, closes the hotel on three sides. Trees stand within arm's length of the walkways, and the boundary shifts a little each season as growth fills in. Below the buildings the ground falls to a strip of sand, and there the land simply stops at the Andaman Sea.

The forest behind is old and continuous, and it carries sound further than it carries light. Hornbills and dusky langurs move through the upper branches and are heard well before they are seen. On the other side the water is shallow and quiet, with the outline of Thailand visible on clear mornings.

Raised timber walkways carry guests through the trees rather than under them, and the villas sit on legs so the ground cover runs on underneath. A single stepped path drops from the forest level to the sand, which is the one place the two edges touch.

Pack shoes with grip: the walkways between the forest level and the beach are steep and often damp.

Planting ends in a straight row, and that row is the boundary. There is no wall to speak of; the last vines simply give out and the ground continues bare. From the low buildings the change is legible at a glance, because the trained rows are dark green and everything past them is pale.

Open plain runs on from the last vine until it reaches the Andes, and the range closes the view along the whole western side. The air is dry and the light is hard for most of the day. In summer the afternoon wind comes down off the mountains and crosses the flat ground without meeting much.

Each lodging is a separate low building set among the rows, with a roof terrace reached by an outside stair. Standing up there puts a person above the vines, so the last row and the mountains behind it line up as one view.

Arrange your transfer in advance, because the lodge sits out among the rows and taxis do not pass by.

Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park has a drawn boundary, and the camp sits outside it on a dune. That line is not a wall and not a fence in any continuous sense, but it is the reason the pavilions are where they are. The sand rises to the tents and then keeps going.

Beyond the line the desert runs flat and red, with spinifex holding the sand in low clumps and single desert oaks standing apart from one another. Uluru sits out in that ground as a single mass. The colour of everything shifts through the day and changes again in the last hour of light.

Each pavilion opens on one side with a full glazed wall and a small deck, and all of them are turned the same way. The camp gives you no reason to walk toward the boundary, because the whole building has already been pointed at it.

Bring something for the cold after sunset, since desert nights drop away quickly even when the day has been hot.

Cut lawn and planting fall away in stages, each one lower than the last, until the ground reaches the Tamar and stops. There is no built edge at the bottom; the gardens end where the bank does. Above them the Regency house sits along the slope, long and low, facing the whole descent.

The Tamar runs below in a wooded valley, and the far bank rises again straight away, so the water is held between two slopes. Sound travels up: the river, and rooks in the trees on either side. Mist collects in that valley in the early morning and clears from above.

A long terrace runs the front of the house at the head of the slope, and the garden paths below it drop by steps rather than ramps. The house was placed to face the valley, and the planting was cut back over time to keep that face open.

Take boots you do not mind muddying, as the lower garden paths stay wet for a long while after rain.

A garden wall runs the length of the street and closes the park on the city side. It is high, plain and continuous, and from outside it gives away nothing about the depth of ground behind it. The 1923 building stands well inside, so the wall is met long before the hotel is.

On the far side of the wall the medina begins at once, with narrow streets, carts, motorbikes and trade that runs from early until late. Nothing is set back. The change in sound at the gate is the clearest part of it, and it happens within a few steps.

The gate does the work. Everything arriving passes through one opening, and the drive behind it turns before reaching the building, so the city is put out of sight. Inside, the olive trees and cut hedges are laid out along straight axes that face away from the wall.

Agree with your driver on the gate you are using, since the surrounding streets are narrow and one-way in places.