Here's a rags-to-riches story. In Woolloomooloo, a traditionally working-class suburb in Sydney's inner east, a wooden wharf juts out 400 m into the harbor. Built just before World War I, Finger Wharf later fell into dereliction, to be saved from demolition only by local protests. Then came a mid-1990s conversion to a marina, restaurants and apartments (Russell Crowe lives there in an $8.5 million penthouse), followed by the addition of a boutique hotel — the onetime W hotel, now known as Blue Sydney, tel: (61-2) 9331 9000, and run by India's Taj group.

• 1. Blue Sydney
  6 Cowper Wharf Rd, Sydney, Australia; (61-2) 9331 9000 -33.86873151.2191 tajhotels.com