Welcome to the Club (German translation below) Once you enter a Kaffeehaus, you are on stage. Everybody is watching you. There is nothing else to do. Having been inspected by the crowd, you are either accepted and from then on ignored, or you are...
Two books by Adrian Mourby should interest all hotel aficionados: Rooms of One's Own — 50 Places That Made Literary History Writers' relationships with their surroundings are seldom straightforward. While some, like Jan...
If you want to know where the beating heart of England can be found, then Trafalgar Square a good place to start. When World War II ended, thousands of people crammed into this world-famous piazza below the National Gallery and danced round its fount...
After staying at a number of hotels where everything -from the lights to the TV, from the window blinds to the air conditioning - is controlled by one complex sheet of interactive glass it is rather nice to return to Le Meurice in Paris a...
Charles C. Ritz (August 1, 1891 – July 11, 1976) was a hotelier and fly fishing specialist. Charles Ritz was the son of César Ritz and Marie-Louise Beck. He did not know his itinerant father well who died when Charles was sixteen. He em...
Author Andreas Augustin visits a good old friend. Once called one of the “Maidens of the East”, today one of the Grand Old Ladies of South East Asia. The Mandarin Oriental in Bangkok keeps its reign as the most famous hotel of Thailand, b...
THE CORINTHIA, LONDON In 2012 a glamorous five-star hotel opened near to London’s Trafalgar Square. However, this was no new hotel. Not at all, just one that had been missing for decades. Unlike many of today's central London hotels, it wa...
CÉSAR RITZ César Ritz*, born in the Swiss village of Niederwald (Switzerland) on 23 February 1850, died in Küssnacht (Switzerland) on 26 October 1918. César Ritz started his hotel career at the age of 15 in S...
Even in times of our global pandemic a hotel in Paris doesn't stop to develop its assets Dine in Style - served by masked waiter - at the Prince de Galles Safety has become the new Luxury. Prince de Galles chi...
1919: Versailles, France Ho Chi Minh It is one of those "what would have been if ..." footnotes of history. World War 1 was over. We are in Paris. In 1919 at Versailles, France, America’s President Woodrow Wilson arrived at the Par...
Vuitton, Louis - the luggage provider In the late 19th century, Louis Vuitton was a renowned trunks and luggage retailer. Entering into the 20th century, the company expanded in terms of locations and financial success. Beginning in the midd...
Fluent in French, Spanish, Italian, and marginally fluent in Russian, Chinese and Japanese, Aloha Wanderwell – nomen est omen – was the first woman to drive around the world in a customised Model T Ford. Aloha Wan...
Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Oscar Wilde was an old comrade-in-arms of the British operetta writers Gilbert and Sullivan (their impressario Richard D’Oyly Carte had organised Wilde’s 1881 lecture tour of the USA). Sullivan was a shareho...
This is Zurich's oldest grand hotel. When it opened on December 24, 1838, it marked a milestone in the history of the hotel industry. In...Read More
Grand Hotel Lviv in 1894 Lviv or Lemberg can be metaphorically described as the westernmost city in Eastern Europe or the easternmost city in...Read More
In our world, it is no longer a given that simple restraint represents true elegance. To be recognized as one of the oldest purpose-built Grand...Read More
In 1923/24, the construction of a 55-room hotel in Phnom Penh was proposed. Architect Ernest Hébrard, who was largely responsible for...Read More
Since decades “The Oriental”, as it is affectionately known by travellers from all over the globe, leads the lists of all...Read More
