Hotel Bristol NEWS

The old Moscow Bristol

2012-01-25T07:07:00.000-08:00

Where was the Bristol Hotel in Moscow? According to Masha Salazkina, author of Sergei Einstein's Mexico, the Mexican painter Diego Rivera stayed in the Moscow Bristol in 1927. It was, says Salazkina, the haunt of "well known figures in the loosely connected global network of modernist critics, collectors and promotors". According to Patrick Marnham's biography of Rivera, the artists left the hotel suddenly in April 1928 after he had clashed with the artistic authorities.

This illustration of the Moscow Bristol's "Hotel Bus" comes from Maurice A. Kelly's Russian Motor Vehicles: The Czarist Period 1784 to 1917, in which full technical details are given. Made by a company called Dux in 1902, it was run on electricity and had a top speed of 12mph, and a range of 60 miles.

New Bristol in St Petersburg

2012-01-25T04:41:00.000-08:00

The new Bristol (left) and the earlier version, hitting the headlines in 1905

A new Bristol Hotel opened in St Petersburg last week. The three-star hotel is in Ulitsa Rasstanaya on the south side of the city, with parking facilities and a shuttle service to Pulkova airport. It has 120 rooms, with all mod cons and a restaurant specialising in game. The first Bristol in St Petersburg was by the Moika River, 4km north of the present hotel. It caught a revolutionary's bomb in 1906, though nobody was killed, but it did not survive the Revolution (See Hotel Bristol News)

Now you can get married at the Newquay Bristol

2011-12-31T05:22:00.000-08:00

The Bristol Hotel in Newquay, Cornwall, has acquired a licence for civil marriages. The 74-bed hotel (the redbrick building in the picture, above Tolcarne Beach) has been in the hands of the Young family since 1927. It was founded by Howard Young and his wife Minnie, after he returned from his travels on the Continent, where he had seen a number of smart hotels called Bristol, and thought the name would add caché. In the Second World War the girls of Benenden School in Kent were evacuated here, and they have held reunions here since. The private school is one of the most expensive in the country (£9,980 a term), and its former pupils include Princess Anne, the actress Rachel Weisz and Lady Victoria Hervey, descendent of the eccentric Frederick Hervey, 4th Earl of Bristol, after whom it is said the first Bristol hotels were named.
Read Paris Hilton & Victoria Hervey - a chapter from 'High Times at the Hotel Bristol'.

New Hotel Bristol in Pyatigorsk, Russia

2011-12-12T10:42:00.000-08:00

The Hotel Bristol rises again in Pyatigorsk in the Caucasus. The town, with a population of around 150,000, is one of the oldest spa resorts in Russia. Its waters were nationalised by Alexander I at the beginning of the 19th century, and at the start of the 20th century the town had another Hotel Bristol but it did not survive the Soviet revolution. The Spa Hotel Bristol is an historic building, and it continues the tradition of water treatment.

Fa-Raon, Parisian concierge cat

2011-12-12T09:30:00.000-08:00

Fa-Raon, a snow-white Burmese cat, plays host at Hotel le Bristol in Paris and has been doing quite a bit of promo work. Often seen around the hotel, he writes his own regular diary. about the hotel, and was recently interviewed by the hedonost's guide, Hg2. He is pictured here in one of the hotel's cars, which can be hired by guests.

How Albania made a king at the Paris Bristol

2011-12-01T04:33:00.000-08:00

Many things have occurred in Bristol hotels -- births, deaths, marriages. But a coronation must surely top them all. Leka Zogu (pictured here) was proclaimed King Leka I of Albania by his countrymen in exile in a function room at Le Bristol in Paris on April 15, 1961. This followed the death of his father, the self-proclaimed Zog I, who had been living in exile since the Italian invasion of 1939.

News of the event comes with the announcement of Leka's death yesterday (November 30) in a hospital in Tirana at the age of 72. He had been born in Albania's capital just a few days before the family went into exile, and spent much of his life in South Africa. In 1997 a referendum was held on the monarchy, which was defeated by two-thirds of the vote. After vigorously protesting the legitimacy of the result, he left the country, returning to live there in 2002, two years before his Australian wife, Susan Cullen-Ward, died. He is survived by their son, also called Leka, who works in the foreign ministry.

Warsaw Bristol changes hands

2011-09-28T10:46:00.000-07:00

The Orbis Hotel Group, which grew out of the former Polish state tourism organisation, has sold Warsaw's Hotel Bristol for €19.5 million. The landmark property has been bought by Rosmarinus Investments, a British company that has an interest in the firm that leased the hotel from Orbis, Royal Starman Bristol. The Hotel Bristol has been operating as part of the Starwood Hotels & Resorts chain. It was brought up to date in a joint venture between Rocco Forte and Orbis, and was opened by Margaret Thatcher in 1993. The event features in 'Lady Thatcher's Finest Hour' - one of the engaging tales in High Times at the Hotel Bristol.

Car Show Started at the Berlin Bristol

2011-09-13T04:48:00.000-07:00

This month celebrates the 110th IAA Cars Frankfurt, the motorshow held in alterate years with the Paris Show. The first IAA was held in 1897 when 8 cars were put on display at the former Hotel Bristol in Berlin's Unter der Linden. The story of the city's famous pre-war hotel is told in"Krupp's Dying Shame", a chapter in High Times at the Hotel Bristol.

Steamboat Springs Bristol to have a new look

2011-09-12T02:33:00.000-07:00

The Bristol is one of the best known hotels in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. A boutique hotel with a homey atmosphere, it was built by – and named after – Evertt Bristol, a local bigwig, in 1948. Its distinctive clapperboard exterior is soon to disappear, however, according to the Steamboat Pilot & Today. The plan is to replace it with a bricks-and-mortar facade, which will make it more in keeping with the rest of the buildings on Lincoln Avenue. The work is being carried out by the Mountain Architecture Design Group, though the lobby and rooms, in Western style, will remain.

Lord Bristol's daughter and the Devonshires

2011-08-25T22:38:00.000-07:00

The Duchess, the 2008 film of Amanda Foreman's book Georgiana about the Duchess of Devonshire, was aired on BBC television on August 24. It starred Keira Knightley (above right) as the Duchess and Hayley Atwell (left) as Elizabeth Foster, who lived in ménage a trois with the duke (Ralph Fiennes) and duchess. Elizabeth Foster was the daughter of the 4th Earl of Bristol, who gave his names to scores of hotels around the world. A descendent of hers (and his) is Anna Wintour, long-serving editor of Vogue.

Oslo Bristol helps put a paper to bed

2011-07-28T03:02:00.000-07:00

The offices of Norway's biggest selling tabloid, VG (Verdens Gang, owned by Shibsted), were badly damaged in the car bomb blast in Oslo on June 22, which killed eight people. The glass-fronted and glass-roofed building in Regjeringskvartalet (the government quarter) lies opposite the government buildings where the blast occurred.
Kristine Lowe, who works on the paper, reported: "The staff was evacuated not once but twice during the afternoon and evening – first from VG, then from its temporary workspace in Shibsted's headquerters."
In the end the company hired six suites in Oslo's Hotel Bristol, where they bought the computer equipment necessary to lay out their stories and get them to the printers. This is the paper (left) they produced for the following morning.
"It was incredibly professional," says Lowe. "I am impressed by the paper they put together under trying circumstances."

* 'Jazz on a Cold Winter's Night', set in the Hotel Bristol in Oslo, is a short story in High Times at the Hotel Bristol

Woody Allen chooses another Bristol Hotel

2011-07-28T02:14:00.000-07:00

Under the title "Woody Allen Soothes Rome with the Magic of Music" Socialite Life has published pictures of the American filmmaker in the Bernini Bristol Hotel in Italy's capital. He is in Rome to make Bop Decameron, with Ellen Page and Jesse Eissenberg, due for release next year. Allen clearly has a penchant for Bristol hotels... As reported in May, his latest movie, Midnight in Paris,was largely shot in Hôtel le Bristol in the French capital.

The Bristol in Rome opened its doors in 1874, and is thought to be the oldest Hotel Bristol still functioning.

Warsaw Bristol memories

2011-07-19T01:46:00.000-07:00

Teresa Ferguson, a retired journalist from Warsaw has just returned to the Hotel Bristol after 22 years, and she describes her visit, and her memories of the hotel, where her mother was a receptionist in 1955, in her blog: Bristol Hotel in Warsaw – Walking the Memory Lane. As a child she spent days in the hotel behind the receptionist's desk, and attended Christmas parties. When she attended Warsaw University she used the Bristol Cafe, which was a popular student hangout. On her recent return to a quite different Warsaw, she writes: "All this mottled crowd, all this freedom, replaced the drab, silent and sad world that I had lived in, it seemed, only yesterday, and I thought about how different my life and my chances would have been were I a student now."
A tale about Lady Thatcher opening the revamped Warsaw Hotel Bristol in 1993 is told in 'Lady Thatcher's Finest Hour', a chapter in High Times at the Hotel Bristol.

Tales from Ukraine

2011-07-12T11:29:00.000-07:00

Isaak Babel (1894–40) is remembered this year at the Odessa Literary Festival in the Odessa Museum on July 7, when a statue of him will be unveiled. Participants in the festival are being accommodated in the Hotel Bristol. Babel, the author of Odessa Tales, claimed that Odessa had 'more charm than any other city in the Russian Empire'. According to Lonely Planet: "That's probably still true in modern Ukraine. The course of this charm is the Odesans themselves: a breed apart, they're stylish, cultured, funny, savvy, and not easily impressed.' Odessa Tales describes the lives of Jewish gangsters in the city before and during the Revolution, which brings to mind George Soros, who once said that Ukraine gave corruption a bad name.

New Hotel Bristol in Sarajevo

2011-06-29T06:21:00.000-07:00

The 4-star Hotel Bristol in Sarajevo has recently opened, and has had good reviews, not least from satisfied customers from TripAdviser. Standing beside the River Miljacka in the heart of the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina and 3km from the old town of Bascarsija, the hotel is owned by the Dubai-based Shaza hotel group. It has a Wellness and Fittness centres, pool, parking, two restaurants, a cafe and a 'traditional Bosnian lounge'. There are 16 suites as well as single and double rooms. It also has conference facilities and is popular with businessmen. Only a few years ago the Bristol was a derelict building, a victim of the Balkans war fit only for graffiti artists. It's good to see it back on its feet.

Wrinkles on the LA Bristol

2011-06-03T05:44:00.000-07:00

The headline in the LA paper is: JR Throws 'Westside' Hand Sign on East Wall of Bristol Hotel for 'The Wrinkles of the City'. The W sign shows you come from the city's West Side, and was apparently started by the late Baby T of the Grape Street Crips. Since then it has moved from street gangs to the fashionable. This piece of street art on the side of the former Bristol Hotel, which has recently been refurbished, is by the French artist known as JR. It's part of his Wrinkles in the City project, which installs paintings of senior citizens on the sides of buildings in the streets where they live. They are being put up in collaboration with the Free Wall Project, and are being mapped by Google.

Read the whole story in the Los Angeles Times.

Le Bristol stars in Woody Allen's new film

2011-05-23T03:43:00.000-07:00

Le Bristol in rue du Faubourg St-Honoré provides a setting in Woody Allen's latest film, Midnight in Paris, which opened the Cannes Film Festival this year. Time magazine reports: "Gil Pender (Owen Wilson), a writer who's grown restless piling up the money and credits as a Hollywood script doctor, has come to Paris with his fiancée Inez (Rachel McAdams) and her conservative parents John (Kurt Fuller), in town on a business deal, and Helen (Mimi Kennedy). Ensconced at the posh Hotel Bristol, they hate the city, the rich food, the people; they suspect, on little evidence, that a Bristol maid has stolen Inez's pearl earrings..."

Despite the slur, Le Bristol was happy for the exposure, which included shots of its 160sq m Panoramic Suite, which has a terrace, gum and Louis XV furniture. General Manager Didier Galvez said:"We were thrilled to assist Woody Allen, the cast and crew during the making of Midnight in Paris last summer... and are delighted that Le Bristol features alongside such a distinguished cast."

Owen Wilson as Gil and Rachel McAdams as Inez in the gardens of Le Bristol Hôtel

Syria protest at Beirut's Bristol

2011-05-22T12:28:00.000-07:00

Beirut: Many major political decisions and meetings in Lebanon take place at the Le Bristol in Beirut. On Tuesday, May 17, it became caught in the crossfire, with the result that it felt obliged to put out a statement regretting hosting a conference that showed solidarity with the Syrian government, as it had endangered the well-being of the hotel's employees and customers. It says: "The management learned from media reports that potential protests might take place outside the hotel at the time of the conference, which might pave the way for clashes between protesters loyal to the Syrian regime and others who oppose it."
MTV reported that members of the Baath party and SSNP had visited the hotel and asked to hold a pro-Syrian regime conference at the same time as a conference in solidarity with Syrian protesters. After Le Bristol cancelled the event, the organiser of the conference in support of the Syrian protestors failed to find another venue. Co-ordinator Saleh Machnouk told the Financial Times that 25 Beirut hotels had refused to host the event.

Five-star Bristol Odessa fully restored

2011-03-27T10:30:00.000-07:00

Discover Ukaine reports that Odessa's historic Bristol Hotel has opened after nine years of restoration, though it has been operating for a while. Part of the Vertex Hotel Group network, it is one of three 5-star hotels in Ukraine's Black Sea resort. The architect Mykola Levanevskiy told DU, "This is probably the only restoration in Odessa in which there was an attempt to save the old appointments: the mouldings, the sculpture, the ceilings. Many things were done according to pre-revolutionary photos. The restored Bristol is almost completely faithful to what Alexander Bernardazzi [the hotel’s original architect] built."

Night Stalker haunts Bristol Hotel in Frisco

2011-03-25T08:15:00.000-07:00

This story just ran in the San Francisco Chronicle about the room in the Hotel Bristol where the Night Stalker stayed...

"The vibrations are so bad in Room 315 at the Hotel Bristol in the Tenderloin that current occupant Daniel Sepeda thinks it’s time to bring in the holy water. ‘I should sprinkle some around and say some prayers,’ he said. ‘There are weird spirits here. It gives me the creeps.’ Sepeda and his roommate, James Bowton, attribute those creeps to Room 315′s former tenant, Richard Ramirez. Ramirez is the man police say is the ‘Night Stalker,’ a cold-blooded serial killer who murdered people while they lay sleeping and then scrawled satanic symbols on their walls. Ramirez stayed at the Bristol several times during the past two years, according to manager Alex Melnikov… Melnikov said Ramirez left behind a mysterious odor in the room. ‘It smelled like skunk,’ said one resident who declined to give her name. ‘The cleaning man sprayed like hell, but it wouldn’t go away.’ A five-pointed star, a pentagram, associated with devil worship, was found drawn on the bathroom door…"

Hotel Bristol Tuzla 'disparu'

2011-02-20T01:23:00.000-08:00

...so says Jazzy, from Tuzla, who posts this picture, below left, of where the Hotel Bristol in Tuzla stood from 1959 until recently. In its place the bright new hotel pictured on the right is planned for the third largest city in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It could do no better than retain the excellent Bristol name. What this sounds like in the local languages - Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian – is hard to know, though there are Bristol hotels in Mostar, and in Opatija and Lovran in neighbouring Croatia, as well as one in Belgrade. Tuzla is Turkish for salt, a reminder that the Balkans were once in the Ottoman empire (the well known Bristol in Istanbul is now the Pera Museum). Two salt lakes are part of Tuzla's central park.

Le Bristol founder's grandson at Cadot Restaurant in Dallas

2011-01-20T09:25:00.000-08:00

The Dallas Observer today publishes an interview with Jean-Marie Cadot, chef-owner of Cadot Restaurant in North Dallas, Texas. Cadot's mother is the daughter of Hypollyte Jammet, the founder of the famous Paris Bristol, where she was born and raised. She gave him his first cookbook, he says, and he roasted his first chicken at the age of nine. Her paintings adorn Cadot Restaurant, which opened in 2009 and has received many accolades.
Le Bristol in Paris is the subject of Suha Arafat and the Hope Diamond, a chapter in High Times at the Hotel Bristol, which can be read online.

Le Bristol murder suspect to be extradited

2010-12-13T04:06:00.000-08:00

Polish millionairess Kinga Legg was battered to death with a gilded lamp in the bathroom of Room 503 on the fifth floor of Le Bristol, the five-star Paris hotel, on May 26, 2009.
Ian Griffin, the man who shared her room and subsequently went on the run was captured in England shortly afterwards. He has been in Wandsworth prison ever since, undergoing psychiatric tests, and is reported to have attempted suicide several times. The courts have now ruled that he is fit to stand trial and he will be extradited to France.
The full story behind the murder can be read in Crime Magazine

Oslo Hotel Bristol skeleton key

2010-12-07T05:15:00.000-08:00

This item from the famous Oslo Hotel Bristol has just gone up on eBay. It says it is a "vintage brass skeleton room key and fob", and the current bid stands at $19.95. It's hard to work out what exactly we are looking at. Sticking out at the side, the fob is rather ungainly, but it is apparently stamped with the same room number – 415 – and must have been made all of a piece because the two parts cannot now be separated. Usually fobs are something you can hook on to, but how do you "wear" this key? Clever, though, to give it a room number. No-one would suspect it could open every door.

Kossak painting stolen from Hotel Bristol in Vienna

2010-11-18T07:58:00.000-08:00

A painting by the Polish artist Wojciech Kossak has been stolen from the Bristol Hotel in Warsaw. Kossack (1857–1942) came from a family of painters, and he specialised in battle scenes and equestrian paintings. This self-portrait is in the National Museum in Warsaw. For some years he had an atelier in the hotel, paying for his rent with his paintings, which lined the walls of the restaurant. The painting that has been stolen was in the lobby, and was cut from its frame. It is said to be worth 30,000 euros.

Chandelier from Hotel Bristol, Merano, for sale.

2010-11-15T06:00:00.000-08:00

ANOTHER souvenir from the former luxury Hotel Bristol goes under the hammer on December 15. This Murano glass chandelier, manufactured by Seguso Vetri d'Arte in 1954, is more than 8ft (250cm) in diameter. Three were commissioned for the hotel, two have survived. Auctioneers are Phillips de Pury of New York, who have put an estimated price of $80-120,000 on the piece.

• In September a pair of 1938 Gio Ponti chairs from the Bristol in Murano came up for sale at Wrights auctioneers, with an estimated price of $3,000–5,000 – they sold for $13,750.

• The hotel is the subject of a handsome book called Hotel Bristol, by photographer Elizabeth Holzl, mentioned in an earlier post

Also for sale, on eBay, Russian stamps with an image of Tsar Nicholas, postmarked "Hotel Bristol Ekterinaslav

Round egg found in Cornish Hotel Bristol shock!

2010-10-16T11:34:00.000-07:00

Chef James Church, 27, of the Hotel Bristol, Newquay, Cornwall, just hit the headlines after picking up a morning egg to crack for a guest's breakfast when he realised he was holding a perfectly round egg. Shocked, he called the kitchen staff to admire his find – the first he has seen after what he reckons must be a 100,000-egg-cracking career. More uncommon than a four-leaf clover, nobody has come forward since that they too have ever seen such a sight. Church is keeping it in a refrigerator for posterity.

Bristol Hotel, Karachi

2010-10-09T09:42:00.000-07:00

A Blog called Pak Tea House recalls memories of the great hotel Bristol in Karachi - built by a Welshman in 1910 and soon famous under the Raj for its parties. In 1960 the owner's son sold it to the politician Rizvi Sahab who ran it with continuing fame until he 1994. Still standing, it is now a "home", though for what is unclear..

Hotel Bristol for sale in Wales

2010-10-09T09:25:00.000-07:00

Well, we hadn't heard of this Hotel Bristol before – a B&B in Burry Port, South Wales, which has just come up for sale. It has 2 en-suite family rooms, 1 en-suite double room, a single room with shower. licensed bar, and beer garden, and 28-cover restaurant. It also has a 2-bedroom studio flat, which could be used for owner accommodation. "Rooms need some modernaisation"the ad says, but the public areas were modernised n 2007. It's on the market for £230,000. See BuyMyBusiness.co.uk

Bristol Murano's Gio Ponti chairs for auction

2010-09-24T10:23:00.000-07:00

This pair of 1938 Gio Ponti chairs come from the once-famous Hotel Bristol in Murano, Italy, and are up for sale at Wrights auctioneers, with an estimated price of $3,000–5,000. The hotel is the subject of a handsome book called Hotel Bristol, by photographer Elizabeth Holzl.

• The four-star Hotel Bristol in Budapest, Hungary has just been voted one of Eastern Europe's Top 10 hotels under £30, according to research by Trivago, which carries out price comparisons.

Hotel Bristol - another hit, from Joel Palsson

2010-09-18T23:50:00.000-07:00

Icelandic saxophonist Joel Palsson has posted a new tune on MySpace, titled Hotel Bristol. This is, to my knowledge, only the second time Hotel Bristol has been used in music - the last time was raper LL Cool J's song about a mythical Hotel Bristol in New York's Queens, which is described in the chapter "LL Cool J and the Woman who Shot Andy Warhol, in High Times at the Hotel Bristol. The BBC were going to play the rapper's track when they last interviewed me, until they heard the lyrics, which are not quite fit for family listening.

Room 315 Hotel Bristol

2010-09-03T06:48:00.000-07:00

San Francisco's nastiest serial killer, Richard Ramirez, nicknamed "The Night Stalker" stayed in Room 315 of the Bristol Hotel (pictured) in the Tenderloin district. The story has resurfaced in Tenderloin, which recalls how he was captured when one of the staff recognised him from a police sketch. Ramirez murdered people in their beds and left satanic symbols daubed on their walls. A pentagram was painted on the bathroom door of Room 315 and police took it away. In the same hotel at this time was Valerie Solanas, would-be assassin of Andy Warhol, whose story is told in "LL Cool J and the Woman who Shot Andy Warhol", chapter 7 in High Times at the Hotel Bristol - now available as an eBook.
Solanas died in the hotel, aged 52, in 1988. Ramirez is on Death Row in San Quentin prison, awaiting execution.

Hotel Bristol Skopje in 3D

2010-06-27T01:46:00.000-07:00

A new 3D view of the old Hotel Bristol is Skopje has just been published by guitardemon, based in Thessaloniki, and if you click on the link you can see the building rotate through 360 degrees. Built in the 1924, the Hotel Bristol was one of the few buildings to survive the 1963 earthquake which has left the nearby railway station clock stopped at 5.17. Rebecca West is said to have stayed here, and today it has a gambling casino. A story of the Hotel Bristol and the earthquake is told in High Times at the Hotel Bristol, and can be heard in a podcast.

Isiaih Berlin at the Hotel Bristol, Beaulieu-sur-Mer

2010-06-20T00:19:00.000-07:00

In January 1938 Isiaih Berlin, then 19 and at Oxford, was staying at The Hotel Bristol in Beaulieu in the South of France. This is part of a letter he wrote to Stephen Spender:

"The Riviera is dreary and hateful beyond belief. I had no choice but to go to this place, since I wished to finish Marx & at the same time not be totally isolated since in absolute solitude I tend to go mad. As a result I am living in luxury against which I have violent petit bourgeois feelings: look at Sir J Simon [Chancellor of the Exchequor, 1st Viscount Stackpool] and your uncle sitting under the trees of the Jardin Exotique: but am in fact writing very fast and ferociously. The weather is very good, which for one I dislike, since it gives open pleasure to so many detestable people: really you ought to come here and get a taste of the kind of society which produced the anarchists & dynamiters of 1880-90."

The hotel no longer exists. I think it probably didn't survive the Second World War.

Trotsky and the Copenhagen Bristol

2010-04-09T07:01:00.000-07:00

The case of Leon Trotsky and the Hotel Bristol in Copenhagen has come under scrutinuty recently. The details of the Dewey trial in Mexico, which set out to vindicate Trotsky of the accusations brought against him by Stalin during the Show Trials of 1936, are laid out in the 'Leon Trotsky and the Hotel Bristol That Never Was' (chapter 9 in High Times at the Hotel Bristol). It centres on the allegation that Trostsky had met with anti-Stalinists in the cafe of the Bristol hotel in Copenhagen in 1927: his defence was that the hotel, adjoining the Grand Hotel, had burned down in 1917 and no longer existed, so he couldn't have met anyone there. The hotel and cafe are pictured here.

In 1920 the Hotel Bristol was opened in Oslo by Waldemar Jensen, who, according to the hotel's history, chose the name after buying a job lot of cutlery and silverware from the bankrupt Bristol in Copenhagen. The Oslo Bristol is a handsome building, with a long tradition for live music, and it remains one of the city's best.

Panama brunch

2010-04-09T05:34:00.000-07:00

Celebrity chef Cuquita Alvas de Calvo is serving up four-course brunches in the Panama Bristol: see the report in The Panama News. It's $35 a head and, with passionfruit mimosas, is money well spent, says the reviewer.

Hotel Bristol Vienna: a handsome new book

2010-03-23T01:48:00.000-07:00

A new book has just been written and produced by Andreas Augustin and his esteemed organisation, Famous Hotels of the World. Between 1900 and 1910 Hotel Bristol in Vienna was "the centre of the intellectual world," according to historian Carl Schorske. Intellectuals, artists, musicians and prominent politicians all found their way here. This handsome publication is fully illustrated with period photographs, and packed with anecdotes and interest: for further details, visit the website.

Of course this luxury hotel's appeal didn't stop in 1910, and you can read all about Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson's connection with the Vienna Bristol in High Noon for the King's Moll, taken from High Times at the Hotel Bristol.

Streisand's Bristol moment

2010-02-10T01:06:00.000-08:00

A Barbra Streisand fan named Hart, from Fort Lauderdale, has posted pictures on his blog of the Hotel Bristol in San Francisco from the 1972 film What's Up, Doc?, starring Streisand and Ryan O'Neal. Alongside it is a picture he has taken of the same hotel today – the Hilton, where the action actually took place. The real Hotel Bristol in San Francisco is in the Tenderloin district and it's not as elegant. It's where SCUM manifesto's Valerie Solanas died. You can read about it in "LL Cool J and the Woman Who Shot Andy Warhol", chapter 7 in High Times at the Hotel Bristol.

The Hilton-Bristol connection doesn't end there. You can find out about the heiresses who link the name in "Paris Hilton and Lady Victoria Hervey", chapter 8 in High Times at the Hotel Bristol, which can also be read online.

Gamblers' hotel discount in Russia

2010-01-31T14:49:00.000-08:00

So, Russia has once again decided to allow certain areas of the country to run casinos. The move has been hotly debated in the country, and we don't want to get involved in the debate. All we'd like to pass on is the fact that the Hotel Bristol in Yelsk (or Elsk, it gets transliterated a lot different ways), in one the of the chosen regions, is offering a discount on its rates to gamblers. The 36-bedroom 3-star Bristol, pictured here, is a modern business-oriented hotel, but the original Bristol in this trading port on the Sea of Azov opened more than 100 years ago.

Phantom Bristol hotels

2010-01-12T01:46:00.000-08:00

Bristol hotels crop up a lot in fiction. It is a landmark in Jan Morris’s convincingly real Mediterranean city state of Hav (“You desperately want the place to exist,” said the Observer book reviewer. “with all its idiosyncrasies - the snowberries that ripen only 'when the early spring suns melt the last of the escarpment's winter snows'; the lethal Roof-Race which is to the people of Hav 'as the bull-running is to Pamplona'."

Roald Dahl had an invented Bristol Hotel in Cannes, in his story Skin, broadcast on BBC Radio 4 just before Christmas. It was a double bluff, as the fact that there is no Bristol hotel in Cannes provided a punchline to the tale.

The Bristol hotel 'in a large city on the Atlantic coast' of America is also the setting for “A Night at the Bristol Hotel” This “ancient edifice of four stories, weather-darkened and squeezed on every side by the overgrowth of the great city....” provides the backdrop for spooky short story that has just been published on a blog by Norman A. Rubin.

And there is City of Ghosts, a story about the Capsis Bristol in Salonica, where Tom Cotton found himself one Easter weekend.

Christmas in Bristols past

2010-01-07T03:35:00.000-08:00

150 years ago On Christmas day 1859 the poet/painter Edward Lear arrived at the Hotel Bristol in Marseilles after a rapid journey across France on the new railways system: "Suffered from heat & cramps at first but wore thro' the night to Dijon at 2½ , & at Lyons by 6½. After that the weather cleared, & I read and looked out of windows at the mountains beyond Valence. All the better for it and afterwards the olives and stones. But the afternoon clouded and became wet. At Marseilles by 3½ . No bother with luggage. Came to Hotel Bristol, washed & dressed by 5 – table d'hôte dinner tolerable. 2 sets of English & a very nice fellow, Dr Chisholm, from India. Came to bed @ 9 and slept well."

There was still a Bristol Hotel in Marseille, at 18 Canabiere (pictured) up until around the 1960s, but there is no longer one there now.

70 years ago On Christmas day 1939 the veteran US journalist Ed Murrow (left) gave his regular 5-minute broadcast from Warsaw: "For reasons of national as well as personal secucrity I am unable to tell you the exact location from where I am speaking," he told his American audience on NBC. "Spread out beyond the roof before me is a vast sea of darkness, patchily illuminated by burning buildings... Off to the west is a line of fire that marks the location of the battle line between the German and Polish armies, a line marked by the muzzle flashes of artillery, flares hanging in the air between the two armies and burning buildings that have been struck by shells. That line goes off beyond the horizon in either direction, reaching all the way to the Lithuanian border in the north and all the way to the Czechoslovak border in the south."

.....In fact Murrow was speaking from the terrace outside the Paderewski suite in the Hotel Bristol, still a high spot in the city.

Scandal of the Bristols

2010-01-07T02:50:00.000-08:00

"The disgrace and disintegration of three aristocratic families" is the sub-title of a new book, Spleandour & Squalor by Marcus Scriven, and it is no surprise to see that the Bristols are one of the three. The fortune of the family that gave its name to the hotel trade was most spectacularly dissipated by John Hervey, the 6th Earl, who is said to have spent £7million on drugs, for which he was at one stage jailed. You can read about him in "LL Cool J and the Man who Shot Andy Warhol", chapter 7 in High Times at the Hotel Bristol. He did, however, not stand much of a chance, being the son of the Victor, the 6th Earl, who had also put in time for robbery and was, according to Scriven, the inspiration for Evelyn Waugh's Basil Seal Rides Again: Or, the The Rake's Regress. Victor's story is told in Paris Hilton & Lady Victoria Hervey, which can be read on-line.

Return to latest news

Bristol hotel revived in Romania

2009-12-21T14:46:00.000-08:00

Well well, another Bristol hotel has been revived in the east. The old Bristol hotel at 12 Domneasca Street in Galati has returned to its former name after being the Galati for many years under communism. The old building (right), like most in Ceaucescu's Romania, is entirely rebuilt (left) and has added a 'Le' before the Bristol - but then Romania always had pretensions towards Paris. Hotel Le Bristol could provide a pleasant place to stay in the Moldavian city on the banks of the Danube not far from the Black Sea. But somehow the old Bristol looks more inviting.

Return to latest news

Steamboat Springs Bristol gets snowboarders' vote

2009-12-16T02:57:00.000-08:00

Snowboard magazine in the US has just voted the Bristol Hotel in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, hotel of the week. "Why stay at a chain hotel when you can check out a place with some local flavor for the same price," says the magazine.

The hotel, illustrated here, was established in 1948 by local police chief Everett Bristol – so there is no doubting how this hotel got its name. With a welcoming host, Petrona Pusey, it's a great hotel in the middle of town, with a real old-time feel.

"The roots of Steamboat Springs are in ranching," says the hotel. "And that's the flavor that embraces you as you step across the threshold to an era gone by. You can almost hear spurs jingling with each footfall as the Bristol's ambience, like a Zane Grey novel, takes you to a simpler time. Hang up your duster, put your wide-brim on the hook and stay awhile."

Sounds wonderful. For other Bristol hotels in snowy skiing locations, visit Ski Bristol Hotels.

Return to latest news

Hotel Bristol in Lagos comes down

2009-12-15T03:32:00.000-08:00

The old Bristol Hotel in Martins Street, Lagos, is being demolished today. One of the city's well-known hotels, where foreigners used to go to exchange money, it has long been on the shabby side – there was even once a lynching in its garden. For some time, it has been in steady decline. The Martins family, who own the land, has been given permission by the state governor to pull it down, following the expiry of its 50-year lease.

This is one of the last hotel Bristols in Africa – the famous one in Cairo is long gone, leaving only three, in Tunis, Tangier and Asmara, in Eritrea.

LET THEM EAT HANDBAGS

Chef Laurent Jeannine at Le Bristol in Paris has produced a fancy chocolate dessert shaped like a handbag – another must-have for the must-buy clientele of the top hotel. At only 30 euros, it will add relatively little to Sarkozy's lunchtime bill.

Back to the latest news

Hotel Bristol tales on Twitter

2009-12-02T01:11:00.000-08:00

You can now follow Hotel Bristol tales on Twitter

Back to the latest news

Bristol bid for 2018 World Cup

2009-12-01T02:16:00.000-08:00

The city of Bristol is putting in a bid (December 16) to be the venue of the 2018 football World Cup, Mark Roche-Garland, general manager of The Bristol Hotel, says: "It's brilliant, we have to win on the 16th. The potential this has not just for my hotel but for every business in the city is incredible. Everyone is set to benefit with Bristol firmly placed on the world stage."

And that wonderful staircase at the Hotel Bristol in Geneva has been snapped again, this time by Robert of Toronto

Back to the latest news

Hotel Bristol Opatija for sale

2009-11-20T21:08:00.000-08:00

The four-star Hotel Bristol in Opatija, Croatia, is reportedly up for sale. Its Austrian owners, who also own the resort's Astoria and Opatija hotels as well as the Apoksiamen on the island of Mali Losinj, are selling the Bristol either on its own or as part of the four-hotel package. Built in 1906, this elegant, 78-room hotel was fully renovated in 2004-5 and has been on the market for a couple of years. The company has now reduced the price by 20 percent in a bid to find a buyer.

.....In the mild Kvarner Gulf, Opatija was a favourite resort of the Habsburg aristocracy, and the pioneer seaside holiday spot in the Adriatic. "Abbazia, Idylle von der Adria", a guide book to the town then known as Abbazia, appeared in 1863, and the following year the first hotel opened: the Quarnero, now the Grand Hotel Kvarner. The town has a Museum of Tourism.

The Hotel Bristol in Mexico City gets a good write-up in Lonely Planet. Built in 1970 for the World Cup, this central hotel has rooms from $US54 a night. The hotel also gets a mention in "Trotsky and the Hotel Bristol that Never Was", a story in High Times at the Hotel Bristol.

Back to the latest news

New Hotel for Bristol airport

2009-11-04T07:32:00.000-08:00

Bristol International airport is to have its first hotel, a 250 bed building next to the terminal building. Costing £20 million, it is expected to open in 2012. The Pedersen Airport Hotels Group already had three hotels in Bristol The Novotel, Mercure and Ibis. As already reported here Bristol got its first hotel actually called Bristol earlier this year. Maybe this one will be name after the Britannia (right) or Blenheim (probably not Boxcart) or some other great aircraft built in Bristol.

Meantime the old Hotel Bristol in downtown LA, whose story we have been following, is now on schedule to open next year as affordable housing. It's already looking in a lot better shape than when we last looked - shades of its former glory are there for all to see. There will be a ground floor burger bar and the basement club will remain for a while.

Back to the latest news

Chile wines in the Santiago Bristol

2009-10-26T15:41:00.000-07:00

There isn't a Hotel Bristol in Santiago, Chile, but there is a Bristol Restaurant in the Hotel Plaza San Francisco in downtown Santiago, and here, once again, the annual wine fair has just taken place. Fifty wineries were represented, and chef Axel Manriquez provided appetizers to add to to the Aroma Tables.

Back to the latest news

Babymoon at the Kempinski Bristol

2009-10-19T08:51:00.000-07:00

The word 'babymoon' to describe a period when a couple expecting a baby takes a break for the last time in quite a while has only come into circulation in the past few years. It's an ideal tag for hotels to hang a package on. The Kempinski Hotel Bristol in Berlin is offering a Deluxe Babymoon Package that includes two nights and days of pampering - breakfast in bed, candelit dinners, steam baths, limousine tours - plus a present of Baby Bathrobe and Slippers to take home for later. It costs from 319 euros per person for the 2-night stay.

Bristol Geneva Twitters ahead of the rest

2009-09-23T09:21:00.000-07:00

The World Youth Student Conference (WYSTC) is being held Manchester this week (Sept 22-25) with the theme of ‘Innovation’
Daniel Roberts, Managing Director of Xebidy, adds his thoughts on his website in an article entitled Twitter as the Travel Marketing Tool du Jour.
He writes: "Twitter is a fabulous social aggregator, which can be used to listen to a wide network of conversations. Searches can be run for your keywords against the Twitter stream and when you identify them you can jump into the conversation and help. For example, when I tweeted that I had book my flights from Manchester to Geneva for the weekend to meet a mate. Almost immediately I received a tweet from Hotel Bristol in Geneva asking if I had booked accommodation and would I like help. They would have been running a search against people who mentioned Geneva."

Havana to New Hampshire

2009-09-23T04:16:00.000-07:00

A couple of snippets:

Eladio Monroy is the detective hero of the Canarian writer Alexis Ravelo (Tres Funerales para Eladio Monroy etc). Eladio Monroy was the name of the last president and manager of the Hotel Bristol in Havana on the corner of S. Rafael and Amisted Street, an up-market hotel popular with Americans before the revolution.

The first Hotel Bristol (formerly Jurys Bristol) to be so named in Bristol earlier this year was not the first Bristol in Bristol. There was a Bristol Hotel in Bristol, New Hampshire (pictured right). The American town, which was incorporated in 1819, took its name from the deposits of sand and clay similar to "Bristol sand" used in Britain to make fine china, pottery and Bristol Blue Glass. In New Hampshire they used it to make a high-quality brick, sold as "Bristol Brick".

Bristol memorabilia

2009-09-05T03:26:00.000-07:00

Just come across this T-shirt design incorporating the logo of the Buenos Aires Bristol, part of a range of promotional material created from vintage luggage labels by Sahape Market and sold through Zazzle in the UK. In addition to the T-shirts (£16.95) you can get souvenir aprons (three sizes, up to £20.70), greetings cards, shopping bag, hat (£15.15) and mug (£17.25).

HOTELS IN BRISTOL (including the Bristol) are counting their blessings, and their pounds, at the end of the 12-week 'Banksy vs Bristol Museum exhibition, which attracted 4,000 visitors a day. The influx brough £10 million into the city's economy, doubling the turnover of a number of buisinesses. "It's nice to see it's been so popular," the elusive Bristol artist texted the media. "But it makes me suspicious. Throughout history all the great artists have been overlooked in their own lifetimes and only appreciated after they are gone. I'm starting to worry I'm not one o the good guys."

Celebrating the fall of the wall

2009-08-09T23:32:00.000-07:00

.November 9 marks the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, and hotels in the city are offering packages and deals. The question is, who will be staying in the new Presidential suite in the Kempinski Hotel Bristol? It covers 5,300 square feet on the 10th and 11th floors of the hotel’s tower. The suite has five bedrooms, seven bathrooms, two living rooms, a pantry on each floor, as well as two boardrooms, which can double as bedrooms. The suite can also be divided into two same-sized deluxe suites. The two master bathrooms have LCD TVs in the mirrors, and the walk-in rain shower glows with illuminated water jets.The suite can also be accessed by a separate entrance.
.....Meantime Le Bristol in Paris opens a new seven-storey wing in September, as it expands on to Avenue Matignon and Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré. It will provide 27 rooms, five of them suites, and penthouse accommodation with spectacular views. There will also be a new restaurant.

Back to the latest news

Murder at Le Bristol, Paris

2009-06-01T08:10:00.000-07:00

Some say that all news is good news - so long as people are talking about you. Even so, Le Bristol in Paris could never have wished to be in the headlines for the murder of businesswoman Kinga Legg in room 503.
.....This isn't the first time the hotel has been the scene of dramatic death. In 1996 Amschel Rothschild, millionaire chairman of Rothschild Asset Management, was found hanging by a bath robe cord in his room at Le Bristol.
.....In both instances the bodies were discovered by chambermaids.

Back to the latest news

At last, THE Bristol Hotel in Bristol

2009-05-26T14:02:00.001-07:00

...
This is not the main entrance to The Bristol Hotel in Bristol, but if you look at it closely you will see that on the first floor above this secondary entrance is a row of parked cars. In fact the hotel, which has perhaps the best waterside location the city, was built in the 1960s by Rank as a motel, called The Unicorn. The car park rises five storeys, and the idea was that you drove your car up to the level that your room was on, and there entered the hotel, without having to use lifts or stairs. In the 1990s the hotel was bought by the Irish Jurys chain and renamed Jurys Bristol hotel, and the car park was taken over by National Car Parks. At the end of last year the 187-room hotel underwent an £8 million refurbishment under The Doyle Collection (see Hotel Bristol News of December 2008), reopening in February this year as The Bristol Hotel. The choice of name was perfect. There has never, as far as we know, been a Hotel Bristol in Bristol before, and General Manager Mark Roche-Garland is adamant that this really is The Bristol Hotel, just as Hippolyte Jammet in 1925 named his Parisian hotel Le Bristol. And you can still, uniquely, park your car on the same floor as your hotel room, thus avoiding the lift and stairs.
.....All this was subject of discussion on May 22 on BBC Radio Bristol, when the morning show presenter Graham Torrington talked to Roger Williams about the hotel, High Times at the Hotel Bristol and the Hotel Bristol Project. Listeners calling in had their own stories about Bristol hotels they had stayed in. A BBC producer even confessed to hurling an alarm clock through a window of the Warsaw Bristol when watching David Beckham score a winning goal. Such shameful behaviour!

Back to the latest news

Kempinski curiosity

2009-05-26T13:39:00.000-07:00

A rare German stamp showing Audrey Hepburn with her trademark cigarette holder was up for auction at the Kempinski Hotel Bristol in Berlin today. With an estimated bid of $42,000, it is only the fifth of such stamps to have been discovered. In 2001 14 million of them were printed, but they were destroyed when Hepburn's son, Sean Ferrer, objected to them. All of the stamps except for some proof copies sent to Deutsche Post for approval were destroyed. An employee snatched 30 of them and sent them postmarked from Berlin. This is one of them.

BRISTOL LOUNGE IN BOSTON
The Aujourd'hui restaurant in the Four Seassons Hotel Boston, one of the city's finest, is closing at the end of June as a result of the credit crunch, which has depleted its customers. In its place the more casual Bristol Lounge will open. Such a name is bound to attract a similarly classy clientele.

Back to the latest news

Another Prince among Bristols

2009-05-14T12:53:00.000-07:00

Constance Creosote of Farnham, Surrey, writes: "I notice from your fascinating website that two Princes of Wales (later Edward VII and Edward VIII) were inextricably involved with the histories of hotels called Bristol. I wonder if you have any evidence that the current Prince of Wales has inherited an appreciation of Bristols."

Well, Ms Creosote, we are happy to say that there does seem to be a lingering family interest in Bristols, borne out by this recent photograph of His Royal Highness.

Back to the latest news

Angels & Demons at the Bernini Bristol

2009-05-04T10:35:00.000-07:00

,
Angels & Demons, a film based on the book by Dan Brown, opens on May 15. Tom Hanks once again plays Robert Langdon (as in The Da Vinci Code) and the elegant Hotel Bernini Bristol in Piazza Barbarini in Rome is where Langdon and his collaborator, Vittoria Vetra, conduct a dalliance.
...Dan Brown is a stickler for locations, but according to The Toronto Star's Paul French, he sometimes gets them wrong:
"For example, Brown's narrative identifies the Piazza Barberini as the site of the church of Santa Maria della Vittoria," says French: "Wrong."
...French reports that Stefano Gardi, doorman of the Hotel Bernini Bristol, is constantly asked for directions to the church. And Gardi has to tell them there is no church in the Piazza Barberini; the one Brown refers to is up the road.
...French concludes: "Fans of Angels & Demons will want to check out the Bernini Bristol, recently renovated and now with an elegant lounge on the roof deck. And you don't have to be a guest to enjoy a cocktail and the terrific views of the city at sundown."
...The picture here shows the relevant chapter of an Italian edition, dedicated by the author to the hotel.
Back to the latest news

LA Hotel Bristol fate decided

2009-03-26T05:09:00.000-07:00

The fate of the Los Angeles Bristol finally seems to be sorted. According to blogdowntown the boarded-up hotel, once destined for a boutique overhaul, has been bought by a group that intends to return the structure to affordable housing. Eric Shomof of Pacific said that the partners in his firm had done the deal as Bristol 423 LP. They plan to renovate the building and operate it as Section 8 housing.

* A nice story about the late Natasha Richardson at Le Bristol in Paris, posted by Joan Juliet Buck...

* The Bristol Buenaventura, a luxury resort hotel, has just opened in Bonaventura on the Pacific coast 80 miles west of Paname City. It's an offspring of the capital's famous Bristol Hotel.

Back to the latest news

Victor Hervey, the fantasist Lord Bristol

2009-03-03T14:35:00.000-08:00

The story of the criminal activities of the Victor Hervey, 6th Marquess of Bristol, whose ancestor gave Bristol hotels their name, was told on Channel 4 on March 2, 2009, as part of their Toffs and Crims series. Titled 'The Real Pink Panther', it centred on his activities as a Mayfair jewel thief, gun-runner and fantasist, and it showed how he disgraced his title and dissipated the Bristol family fortunes. Last April, Hotel Bristol News reported on the release of police papers about his suspected activities, and researchers of the programme were assisted by a copy of High Times at the Hotel Bristol. The book documented these activities in Paris Hilton and Lady Victoria Hervey, a story from the book that can now be read on line.
In the film Hervey was played by Stephen Clarke, who is pictured here outside Ickworth House, the family estate that he squandered. Our Critic, Tim Arnold, writes: "Terrible actor! Silly man!!"
Back to the latest news

New Le Bristol for Abu Dhabi

2009-02-27T23:48:00.000-08:00

This is big news indeed for Bristol hotels: the fabulous Le Bristol in Paris, one of the truly greats, is to open a new hotel in Abu Dhabi. Frank Marrenbanch, chief executive of Oetker Hotel Collection, which will manage the property, says the facility will bring a dash of French luxury to the capital.
Le Bristol Abu Dhabi will be built on the western side of Abu Dhabi Island and have 250 rooms and suites. Building will begin next year, and the hotel will open in 2012.
Sultan al Hameli, the managing director of the government joint-venture partner NCTH, said, "Le Bristol Abu Dhabi is definitely more than five star. It’s going to be a deluxe hotel. It’s going to be something more than what is available in the market.”

• Le Bristol will be the 4th Bristol in the Middle East, joining the eminent Le Bristol in Beirut, and the Bristols in Amman and Kuwait City.

Meanwhile Le Bristol continues to win accolades - Michelin has awarded the hotel's chef Eric Fréchon 3 stars for his creations in what is known as "Sarkozy's canteen" - the Elysée Palace is just across the Road, and it's the president's favourite restaurant. François Simon of le Figaro is not so impresssed. He has made a secret video of a meal there. His bill for a meal for two was 531 euros.
________________________________________

BARGAIN BRISTOL: Hotels in Abu Dhabi, the fifth-most expensive in the world last year, have begun cutting their rates by up to 15 per cent. In Warsaw, the prestigious Le Merdien Bristol – ranked 11th among the 50 best European hotels, outstripping Ritz Hotel in Paris, according to the American monthly Travel & Leisure – prices have also dipped. Its famous Paderewski suite (pictured), containing the pianist/prime minister's bureau and armchair usually costs around 600 euros a night, but, says a report on Polish radio, you could now probably get it for more like 100 euros.
Back to the latest news

Stairways to Bristol heaven

2009-01-23T21:40:00.001-08:00

.Two Bristol hotels are famous for their magnificent staircases. The picture on the left is of the 4–star Bristol in Geneva. It was taken by TimDD and has just been posted on Flickr. “This is the beautiful hotel stairway, from the fourth floor,” he says. “I think it looks like a chambered nautilus.”

The 4-Star Bristol Palace in Genoa (right) also has a fabulous stairway. Built in 1905 in ‘style Liberty’, as the Italians call Art Nouveau, the hotel's white marble stairs with wrought iron balustrades soar up to a stained glass ceiling. Alfred Hitchcock is among the hotel’s many famous guests, and the stairs are said to have inspired him to make Vertigo.
Back to the latest news

2008 Bristol Hotel round-up

2008-12-29T07:36:00.000-08:00

.
• A new Hotel Bristol has emerged in Bristol, England, as the Jurys Hotel Bristol drops its “Jury’s” after an £8 million refurbishment. The Jurys hotel group, which has 11 hotels in the UK, Ireland and the US, is now to be called The Doyle Collection. Mark Roche-Garland is General Manager of the 187-room 60s dockside hotel.

• The Bristol Hotel in Campbell/San Jose California is up for sale for $6 million. Built in 2000, this 5-star boutique hotel with marble bathrooms and classic cherry furniture has 47 rooms.

• The Kempinski Hotel Bristol in Berlin is spending 5.5 million euros on restoration of the landmark hotel’s Tower. Two Deluxe Suites are also being designed in Art Deco style on the 10th and 11th floors, to add to the 514 sq m Presidential Suite that occupies two floors. It should be completed by February.

• Actor Simon Callow told the Daily Telegraph in an interview that the Hotel Bristol in Vienna is his favourite hotel – he has stayed five times. He said: “Last time I was there I stayed in a suite that puts one in mind of Mayerling – the hunting lodge where the Archduke Rudolf, Crown Prince of Austria, killed his mistress before committing suicide.”

• BBC Radio 4 had a play just before Christmas about PG Wodehouse’s incarceration in Le Bristol in Paris during World War II, an event touched on in Suha Arafat and the Hope Diamond, a story set in the hotel in High Times at the Hotel Bristol, which can be read online.

• Le Bristol in continues to win accolades: four important ones this year: ‘World’s Best Hotel’, ‘Europe’s Best Hotel’, ‘World’s Best Luxury Romantic Hotel’ and ‘Europe’s Best Hotel Restaurant’. Innovations have included its own fragrance, for scents and candles, concocted by Jean Michel Duriez, head perfumer at La Maison Jean Patou, and the provision of a complimentary Smart Car for guests who want to go shopping.
Back to the latest news

Hotel Bristol, Merano, by Elisabeth Hölzl

2008-12-13T06:02:00.000-08:00

.
Hotel Bristol, published by Folio Verlagsges, documents the death throes of the hotel in the mountain spa town of Merano, near the German border in Trentino Alto-Adige. Photographer Elisabeth Hölzl, who was born in the town in 1962, spent two years taking pictures of the abandoned Hotel Bristol and its gradual demolition. The hotel was famous before the war, and re-opened in 1954 as one of the most modern and elegant in Europe. It was refurbished by its owner, the Genoan shipbuilder Arnaldo Bennati, who wanted to turn Merano into a second St. Moritz. According to a catalogue for an exhibition of the photographs published online by Berlin's Galerie artMbassy, "The Bristol reflects the decline of a decadent Habsburg Monarchy, the megalomania of of Mussolini’s fascism, the infamous treaty of 1939 between Hitler and Mussolini, the brief sparks of Italian national pride in South Tyrol after World War II, and mass tourist invasion that radically changed the face of the Alps. Stars and starlets, gamblers and speculators, Europe’s moneyed aristocracy, and a future pope – they all appeared at the Bristol."
. For 15 years, the Bristol, in the middle of the town, stood empty – "Its white marble was filthy, its shutters hung crooked, its windows were as blunt as blind eyes. In 2006, the excavators and pneumatic hammers shattered the last residues of a dream. Buildings are designed as strong images that must be replaced by others as soon as they have lost their signal character... They are like old ocean liners – no one would bother restoring or converting them. After they have been used, ships become scrap metal, and hotels are gutted and torn down."

(Arnaldo Bennati was not entirely unsuccessful as a hotel owner. In the 1930s he bought the Bauer Hotel in Venice, which today is run by his granddaughter)
Back to the latest news

The Bristol Story

2008-11-09T00:21:00.000-08:00

Any Hotel Bristol proprietor looking for ideas to theme his or her establishment may look no further than The Bristol Story, an excellently produced 200-page history of the famous city in comic-book form. Written by Eugene Byrne and illustrated by Simon Gurr for the Bristol Great Reading Adventure 2008, it is rammed with facts. It includes a gallery of the city's best-known sons, daughters and dogs, including:
• Britain's most famous cricketer, WG Grace
• actor Cary Grant
• Samuel Plimsoll, inventor of the maritime Plimsoll Line
• 'Nipper' the canine model for HMV gramophone records
• Louise Brown, the world's first 'test tube baby'.
And did you know that this inventive city of vehicle and aircraft manufacturing made the first holiday caravan?
Thousands of copies of Bristol Story have been distributed free to schools and colleges, libraries, reading groups, the business community and members of the public.
Back to the latest news

The new Bristol Hotel in Istanbul

2008-10-26T01:39:00.000-07:00

.
Hippolyte Jammet's battle for the name of Bristol in Paris in the 1920s was not the only time that the name was sought after and won. After the closure in Istanbul of the 19th-century Bristol – one of the original great hotels in the Beyoglu district (see October 2007 post) – hotelier Ali Ihsan Huzmeli (left) sought the name for his hotel in nearby Meşrutiyet Caddesi. This is where Tim Arnold, intrepid hunter of all hotels called Bristol, met him last week. Mr Huzmeli showed him the government certificate he had received after a long process to possess the right to use the name of the former hotel. Mr Huzmeli's Hotel Bristol is a modern hotel with 70 rooms and seven suites, and its sister hotels, all in Beyoglu, are the Grand Hotel de Londres, the Yali Hotel and the Hotel Monopol. Hearing that the Bristol is shortly to undergo renovation, Tim Arnold, a Bristolian, wondered about a Bristol theme – a Clifton Room, Avon Restaurant, Brunel Bar...
Back to the latest news

The World's First Hotel Bristol

2008-09-27T04:00:00.000-07:00

.
Today's Wall Street Journal carries a front page story on the enduring mystery of why the name Bristol should have been used by hundreds of hotels around the world over the past 200 years.

The handsome block on the corner of Place Vendôme and Rue Saint-Honoré (pictured right) was built in 1723 for the king's secretary by the architect of the nearby Élysée Palace, and in less than a hundred years it had the distinction of being what was almost certainly the world's first Hotel Bristol. Opened in 1816, the year of peace in Europe following the end of the Napoleonic wars, this top establishment soon became the hotel of choice for Europe's visiting royalty. Half a century later the Prince of Wales (the future Edward VII), Europe's most glamorous royal, was paying regular visits to Paris where he commanded an entresol suite at the Bristol, just as his grandson would establish the Prince of Wales suite in the Vienna Bristol, one of the most expensive in the world today (see story, below). The 19th-century Prince of Wales even installed his own man as manager of the Bristol, one Bachmeyer, who had been a personal servant of his late father, Prince Albert.

The Bristol's nemesis was the Hotel Ritz, which opened in the Place Vendôme nearby in 1898. The Bristol, which had a bath on each floor, could not compete with the world's first hotel to have a bath in each room, and it went into decline. It did not survive the First World War, when the passionate Russian dancer Ida Rubenstein turned King Edward's suite into a hospital ward. In 1921 the Bankers Trust Company of New York leased a large part of the premises. The old Bristol building passed into history, and today it is part occupied by the Deluxe four-star Hôtel de Vendôme.

So why did the first Bristol pick on the name? Was it taken from the city or, as some insist, from Frederick Augustus Hervey, 4th earl of Bristol, bon viveur and traveller par excellence? Absent from England for most of his life, Lord Bristol might have provided gossip for his peers, but his fame would not spread until later. He died in a wayside Italian barn in 1803, during the Napoleonic wars when European travel was out of the question. He had been one of many besotted with Emma, Lady Hamilton, the lover of Admiral Nelson. Nelson had become a national hero on the moment of his death in the decisive naval battle against the French off Cape Trafalgar in 1805. A decade later Emma, chased by creditors, was ending her days in exile and penury in Calais.

But there remained a public fascination for her extraordinary life story, and when Memoirs of Lady Hamilton with Illustrated Anecdotes of Many of Her Most Particular Friends and Distinguished Contemporaries was published in 1815, the year of her death, it was an instant, runaway success. In the book, many pages were given by its unknown author to the extraordinary friendship Emma had with the outrageous Earl Bishop, concluding:

"Such was the character and end of Frederick Hervey, earl of Bristol, who dissipated a long life, a princely fortune, and respectable talents, in the pursuit of pleasure, with all the eagerness, and on the same motive as that which actuated the Epicurean philosophers of old, whose creed and practice were comprehended in the resolution, ‘Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die’.”

Bristol, the epitome of style and taste, was thus exposed to a wide and hungry audience.

Using his name, with the insistence that it applied to the Epicurean Irish peer, a prospective Parisian hotelier would have got round a tricky conundrum: How does a defeated country appeal to the enemy nation of tourists who had brought it prosperity in the pre-war days of the Grand Tour without offending local feelings? Names such as Grande Bretagne, Londres or even Westminster would have stuck in their throats. The self-exiled Earl-Bishop, who had nothing to do with the recent hostilities, would fit the bill nicely. And if anybody imagined the name referred to the transatlantic port of Bristol, they might think only of a slave-trading port that had always conducted good business with the Revolutionaries' friends in America.

For good measure, the hotelier could borrow the noble coat of arms of the city of Bristol – he would not have been entitled to use the coat of arms belonging to the Bristols of Ickworth. Few people would know the difference.

See the FULL STORY of the first Hotel Bristol
__________________________________________________
• Tales about the Paris's famous contemporary Le Bristol, opened in 1924, can be read on-line in
Suha Arafat and the Hope Diamond,
• The scandal of the 20th-century Prince of Wales and Wallis Simpson in the Vienna Bristol can also be read online in
High Noon for the King's Moll

Both stories can be found in that most fascinating of books,
High Times at the Hotel Bristol.
__________________________________________________
Back to the latest news

Bristol Palin? Where did she get that name?

2008-09-01T10:24:00.000-07:00

The oldest of the five children belonging to the US Republican leader's running mate, Sarah Palin, is 17-year-old Bristol Palin who has just hit the headlines for being pregnant out of wedlock. All the children of the governor of Alaska have unusual names, except Bristol is pretty well known in the state, where Bristol Bay is a prominaent geographical feature. This speculation comes from the National Enquirer:
"Bristol, Palin's oldest daughter, 17, means "meeting place by the bridge," according to thinkbabyn ames.com. Bristol is Old English and is the name of an important town in England, which many US cities were named after as well. It has not ranked in the top 1000 baby names in the US in the last 100 years. Bristol is also the name of a bay in Alaska where Palin's brother-in-law is a fisherman."

Wikipedia says that Palin's husband Todd is a BP employee with a commercial fishing business and is a salmon netter in Bristol Bay (pictured).
There is a Bristol Inn in Dillingham, the Bay's main town. "In the heart of the salmon run," say the blurb. "Our fine hotel is two blocks from the Samuel K. Fox Museum with easy access to banking, restaurants, grocery stores, gift shops and more. Our beautifully appointed rooms, friendly service and warm atmosphere will make your stay a pleasure you'll want to repeat many times."
They're certainly on the map now, and may expect more customers.

Back to the latest news

Fair dinkum bars Down Under

2008-07-08T21:04:00.000-07:00

.

Not all Bristol hotels are places of accommodation. On the other side of the world they are better known as bars and pubs.
The Bristol Arms Retro Hotel in Sydney’s clubland, for example, is a lively nightspot with seven bars on five floors. Converted in 2004, its speciality is hen parties, while July sees winter warm-up nights – wear Hawaiian print or diving mask and snorkel for free ‘VIP’ entry.

The Bristol Hotel in Williamstown, Melbourne, on the other hand, is a traditional pub. "Like a step back in time," says one satisfied customer “The publican, 'Bear', usually gives you the first drink on the house and any information you require regarding the local area and the pub’s history. No pokies, eftpos or computerised sales systems – it really is a unique hotel full of friendly locals and fair dinkum humour that only a visit could explain."
It even has an old-time Ladies’ Lounge.

The Hotel Bristol in Wellington, New Zealand, also sounds like a friendly bar. ”It’s the way a bar should be,” says the promo. "The Bristol is the sort of place that has the right feel. It’s not too small and it’s not too big. It’s not too dark and it’s not too bright. The food is great but the prices aren’t. And you can hear yourself think... except perhaps when a really good live band is playing, or the ‘Canes are dicking the Blues, or the day nighter is down to the last over, or just because the place is packed on a normal Friday night (well, maybe it can get a bit noisy)."

Back to the latest news

High Times at the Hotel Bristol on BBC Radio 4

2008-05-25T00:40:00.000-07:00

High Times at the Hotel Bristol featured on BBC Radio 4's Excess Baggage on February 2. The presenter John McCarthy interviewed the author, Roger Williams, about the 200-or-so hotels called Bristol around the world, about how they got their name and about some of the stories they had to tell.
To listen to the programme as a download or podcast, visit Excess Baggage website.
__________________________________________________

JAMES BOND IN PANAMA
Judi Dench chose The Bristol Panama to stay in while recently shooting scenes for Quantum of Solace, the latest James Bond film in which she once again plays "M", with Daniel Craig as 007. Her stay lasted a week, and though the hotel, one of the best in Panama city, may have appreciated her visit, the location was chosen to represent Haiti. The film's title comes from a short story by Ian Fleming, and it reflects how Bond's heart had been broken at the end of Casino Royale. "When relationships go wrong," Craig told a press conference, "when there's nothing left, when the spark has gone, when the fire's gone out, there's no quantum of solace. At the end of the last movie, Bond has the love of his life taken away from him and he never got that quantum of solace." Now he is out to get the man responsible.
__________________________________________________

BRISTOL IN RUSSIA REOPENS
The name of Bristol in the town of Elsk (or Yeysk) in Russia recently resurfaced after the best part of a century. The first guests in the modern 36-room Bristol hotel were a business group from the French Dreyfus company which had been also frequent guests of the city's old Bristol a century ago. Groupe Louis Dreyfus S.A, the huge family-owned commodity trader, was the major wheat exporter in this port on the Sea of Azov before the Revolution that brought about the demise of most Bristol hotels in Russia.
___________________________________________________

TRAGEDY AT THE NEWQUAY BRISTOL
A coroner in Truro, Cornwall, has recorded a verdict of suicide in the case of Robert Cheetham, a 38-year-old GP who was found dead in the Best Western Hotel Bristol in Newquay on December 5. The doctor, who was married with two children, worked for the Kernowdoc 24-hout GP service. Two days previously, following a call, he had erroneously driven to Bodmin instead of St Austell, a mistake he was convinced would cost him his job. He was found at the Bristol Hotel in Newquay after being reported missing by his wife. He had injected himself with an overdose of diamorphine.
The Hotel Bristol has been run by the Young family since 1927.
________________________________________________

ICE BAR FOR INDIA'S BRISTOL
The 5-star Hotel Bristol in Gurgaon, near Delhi, is set to have India’s first ice bar, where everything from the glasses to the décor will be made of ice and the ambient temperature is -5degC. Hotels and restaurants with bar licences are to be allowed to open ice bars by paying an additional annual fee of Rs 1 lakh.
________________________________________________

THESSALONIKI'S BEST
The 412-room 4-star Capsis Bristol in Thessaloniki, Greece, had a good mention in the Observer this month. "The city's only boutique hotel has a range of rooms tastefully decorated in period style, with doubles from around €160. There is a gourmet restaurant and a classy first-floor terrace to boot," wrote Rough Guide author Nick Edwards
For a new High Times at the Hotel Bristol story about the Thessaloniki Bristol, see City of Ghosts
________________________________________________

ABSEILING THE BRISTOL FOR CHARITY
Just posted on YouTube is this video of a student abseiling from the roof of the Hotel Bristol in Sheffield to raise money for the Sheffield Kidney Research Foundation. The hotel has since changed its name to the Park Inn.
________________________________________________

LESSON FROM THE OLD BRISTOL HOTEL IN PARIS
"Cooking demands complete dedication. One must think only of one's work. When I began as an apprentice I was in the kitchen at five o'clock in the morning and I did not stop until eleven at night, with just a couple hours rest in the afternoon. That was my schedule in 1914 at the Hôtel Bristol in Paris. It has been my schedule ever since. It's too much isn't it? But la grande cuisine is pitiless!" — Fernand Point (1897–1955), father of modern French Cuisine. He was the chef-owner of de la Pyramide in Vienne, where Paul Bocuse trained. A recent mention of his cookbook, Ma Gastraonomie, in the Wall Street Journal sent the price of his 1969 book rocketing. The Hotel Bristol in Paris was then in the Place Vendôme, see Suha Arafat and the Hope Diamond, chapter 19 in High Times at the Hotel Bristol.

Back to the latest news

Sarkozy, Bruni and 'gooseberry' Blair

2008-05-04T00:11:00.000-07:00

From The Guardian, Jan 13: "Smooching their way through a five-course lunch yesterday at an exclusive Paris restaurant, President Nicolas Sarkozy and Carla Bruni made it clear that they care nothing for what anyone thinks, including their gooseberry guest of honour, Tony Blair. The former PM was invited to the five-star Hotel Bristol after addressing a rally of Sarkozy's Union for a Popular Movement party. But all eyes were on the 40-year-old Bruni, who every now and again lifted her sunglasses to lean in and nuzzle the presidential cheek. Sarkozy reciprocated with kisses and cuddles, oblivious of any uncomfortable fidgeting from those around them."
Fashion shows are a regular event at Le Bristol, which was the chosen venue for a recent ceremony to award Jonathan Newhouse with the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. The chariman of Condé Nast Internationlal, and nephew of founder Si Newhouse, once told a magazine "Throughout the years my family has worked in the same way – seriously and in a quiet manner. Our style has been to concentrate on the business and not to seek attention for ourselves." But at the glamorous Bristol, with Karl Lagerfeld, Stefano Pilati, Alber Elbaz, Nicolas Ghesquière, Franca Sozzani, Carine Roitfeld, Pharrell Williams and Pat McGrath in attendance, he was a little more conspicuous than usual.
____________________________________________________

L.A. REVIVAL
This story has been going around for a while, and it might not happen yet. Los Angeles restaurateur Adolfo Sauya and smart designer Dodd Mitchell, who are behind the fashionable Zen Grill & Sake Lounge in Westwood, have a plan to put their and culinary and design skills towards reviving the 1927 Art Nouveau Bristol Hotel (pictured) on 8th and Olive streets. Their plan, initially slated for compketeion three years ago. will give it up to 100 rooms, an Asian-themed restaurant, a bar and a nightclub. It's all part of the sign that downtown L.A. is on its way up.

Back to the latest news

Good times, bad times: Bristols brought to book

2008-04-30T02:28:00.000-07:00

“It has left off raining down in Lincolnshire at last, and Chesney Wold has taken heart. Mrs Rouncewell is full of hospitable cares, for Sir Leicester and my Lady are coming home from Paris. The fashionable intelligence has found it out and communicates the glad tidings to benighted England… Through the same cold sunshine and the same sharp wind, my Lady and Sir Leicester, in their travelling chariot (my Lady's woman and Sir Leicester's man affectionate in the rumble), start for home. With a considerable amount of jingling and whip-cracking, and many plunging demonstrations on the part of two bare-backed horses and two centaurs with glazed hats, jack-boots, and flowing manes and tails, they rattle out of the yard of the Hôtel Bristol in the Place Vendôme and canter between the sun-and-shadow-chequered colonnade of the Rue de Rivoli and the garden of the ill-fated palace of a headless king and queen, off by the Place of Concord, and the Elysian Fields, and the Gate of the Star, out of Paris.”

From Bleak House by Charles Dickens, written in instalments in 1852–3. Dickens had stayed at the old Bristol Hôtel and visited it while writing the book. To read the story of Bristol hotels in Paris, see Suha Arafat and the Hope Diamond, chapter 19 in High Times at the Hotel Bristol.
______________________________________

“By the time we reached the Bristol Hotel in Fahd Al Salem Street [Kuwait City], I had not heard a word of our sales situation in the area, and I was feeling impatient. My irritation increased as soon as I had registered in the hotel. It was the foulest hotel I was ever to visit in my years in the Gulf. It had originally been picked from a list of names.
It would have been a change from the multi-national American-inspired hostelries where I usually stayed, and anywhere in Europe the name Hotel Bristol was almost invariably an assurance of five-star quality, since they derived their name from the patronage of the well-travelled 4th Marquess who bore the title of the great English port. It transpired that this hotel Bristol was a parody of its reputation – a misnomer designed to entrap the unwary traveller – an angler’s deceit in casting his fatal fly – a travesty of all that was true.”

From Death in Riyadh: Dark Secrets in Hidden Arabia, by Geoff Carter
(Arena Books 2001)

Back to the latest news

Bristol hotels are tops

2008-04-25T23:22:00.000-07:00

Le Bristol Hotel in Paris has been voted the Leading Hotel in Europe at the prestigious 2007 World Travel Awards. It was also voted Leading Hotel in France, while the Hotel Bristol in Vienna was voted Leading Hotel in Austria. The trophies in the Europe category, pictured here, were presented at the Marriott Hotel Gosforth Park in Newcastle in November. Said a spokesman for the awards, "With thousands of votes cast by travel professionals from 167,000 travel agencies, tour and transport companies and tourism organisations in over 160 countries, winning a World Travel Award has become one of the highest accolades a travel organisation achieve."
The Prince of Wales Suite in Vienna's Hotel Bristol was voted Austria's Leading Suite. It is the largest hotel suite in Austria, with a library, dining room, office, fitness room and sauna. When in Austria the Prince of Wales famously visited a public sauna, appearing naked with his equally naked, and embarrassed, security guards. You can read all about the Prince of Wales and his affair with Wallis Simpson at the hotel in HIGH NOON FOR THE QUEEN'S MOLL, Chapter 6 in High Times at the Hotel Bristol.

Another recent award winner is the Hotel Bristol in Amman, Jordan. At the 7th Annual International Hospitality Awards, the Middle East's major trade show for hotel equipment and food services, the Bristol, which opened in 2001, received 9 awards including a gold for bed-making. General Manager Alfonso Nocero said that that this achievement serves to solidify Bristol's image as a provider of premium quality services.

Back to the latest news

How Villars' Hotel Bristol brought Aitken down

2008-04-20T11:52:00.000-07:00

Jonathan Aitken, recently put in charge of the Conservative Party’s task force on prison reform, may reflect that he owes his appointment in part to the Hotel Bristol in Villars, Switzerland (right). In 1993 Mohamad Al Fayad, owner of the Ritz hotel in Paris, told the Guardian newspaper that Aitken, then Minister of State for Defence Procurement, had been staying at his hotel, and his bill had been paid by Saudi businessman Said Ayas, adviser to King Fahd’s son, Prince Mohammed. Aitken denied this, claiming that his wife, Lolicia, had paid the bill, and he sued the paper. The case looked as it was going his way until the eleventh hour, when Al Fayad revealed the log of phone calls made by Aitken from the Ritz on the morning of his departure, including calls to the Hotel Bristol in Villars. A Guardian reporter sped to the hotel where he found its papers in boxes, as it was going through a change of ownership. For three days he sifted through them until he discovered that on the day in question Lolicia Aitken and her mother had been staying at the Swiss hotel – so they could not have been at the Ritz to pay the bill. Jailed for perjury, Aitken served seven of his 18-month jail term, providing him with the basis of his new career.
For the full story, see The Minister Who Didn't Pay his Bill

Back to the latest news

Scandal of Victor Hervey, 6th Marquess of Bristol

2008-04-15T05:55:00.000-07:00

LORD BRISTOL, 'CUNNING CRIMINAL'
The National Archives have recently opened their files on Victor Frederick Cochrane Hervey, 6th Marquess of Bristol, father of society limelighters Victoria and Isabella Hervey. The report by the Metropolitan Police CID, , dated January 2, 1946, came in reponse to an anonymous letter-writer's claim that he was behind "almost every jewel robbery in the metropolitan area and within areas outside London"and was "one of the most unscrupulous, calculating and cunning criminals at large". No evidence was found against him and the investigating officer concluded. "Although vicious to almost a sadistic degree, I am certain he would not be fool enough to carry firearms.". An account of the court case in which Hervey was jailed for three years for two Mayfair jewellery robberies in 1939 is the background to Paris Hilton and Victoria Hervey, one of the stories in High Times at the Hotel Bristol.

Back to the latest news

2007-10-11T03:59:00.000-07:00

_________________________________________________________

For a full list of Bristol hotels around the world, visit ALL BRISTOL HOTELS
_________________________________________________________

Florence, Paris, Rome, Geneva, Sarajevo...

2007-10-10T09:12:00.001-07:00

GET A TASTE OF FLORENCE...
The Helvetia & Bristol in Florence is offereing "small, intimate" lessons in Tuscan and Mediterranean cookery under its chef, Enzo Pettè. "Enzo teaches with great passion the simplicity of recreating ancient customs and traditions into a grand contemporary feast," says the hotel where his own preparations can be sampled in the Hostaria Bibendum. The afternoon classes (3–6.30pm) cost 180 euros; 160 if you attend over thee days. For information: Reservation office +39 055 2665554 or email

...and watch the fur fly
Defying the anti-fur lobby, Italian fashion house Fendi showed its winter fur collection at the hotel, with a fur coat as a raffle prize.

WHAT'S THE BEST HOTEL ANNA CHANCELLOR HAS EVER STAYED IN?
"I was filming in Paris and stayed at the Hotel Le Bristol with my daughter Poppy, who was then eight. It was lavish and unexpected and being there with Poppy felt like something out of the book 'Eloise in Paris'." – The actress ("Duckface" in Four Weddings and a Funeral) interviewed in the Daily Telegraph, September 2007
On October 10 Le Bristol was nominated EUROPE'S LEADING HOTEL at the World Travel Awards in Newcastle.

Maybe she should try Rome next...
The Hotel Bernini Bristol in the heart of Rome, has a newly renovated Presidential Suite. On the sixth-floor, it has two bedrooms, two bathrooms, two lounges, a gym and a swimming pool, with a terrace and incomparabvle views over the city, as the picture here shows...

MICHAEL PALIN DIDN'T STAY HERE
The burned out shell of the Hotel Bristol in Sarajevo, not yet recovered from the city's 1,385-day bombardment that ended in 1995, has just been bought by the Malaysian Tradewind hotel group . The company intends to renew the 15-storey 200-room hotel that featured in BBC TV's recent series on Eastern Europe with Michael Palin

MEANWHILE, BELOW STAIRS
Here is a blog about the chambermaids in the smart Hotel Bristol in Geneva where IABC (International Association of Business Communicators) have regular speednetworking evening recently. Hope they have as much fun as the chambermaids seem to have.

Back to the latest news

Istanbul Bristol becomes the Pera Museum

2007-10-01T11:17:00.000-07:00

The Hotel Bristol in Istanbul was built by the Greek architect Achille Manoussos in 1893. Pera, meaning “beyond” or “across” was the original Greek name for Beyoglu, the area on the opposite side of the Golden Horn from the founding city. It is where foreigners came to live and it is where the Pera Palace Hotel was built, near the Bristol, both favourites for Agatha Christie and other visitors from the Orient Express. In 2005 the Suna and Inan Kiraç Foundation renovated this historical building and turned it into the Pera Museum. It has a permanent collection of Orientalist art, with more than three hundred paintings by European artists inspired by the Ottoman world from the 17th century to the early 19th and including the delightful Tortoise Trainer. Other permanent collections include Anatolian Weights and Measures and Kütahya Tiles and Ceramics, which have lively figurative decorations. The museum also has temporary local and international art exhibitions. If you're passing that way, don't miss it.

Back to the latest news

Aerotel Bristol – cockpit or tail?

2007-09-04T22:52:00.000-07:00

The lastest Bristol accommodation in New Zealand is two units in a 1950s Bristol Freighter. The Bristol was one of the last allied planes out of Vietnam. It is parked in Woodlyn Park, Waitomo, where there is caving, white water rafting, glow-worm walks and other outdoor fun. Accommodation is from $125 a night for the Tail or $135 a night for the Cockpit. Each area sleeps up to 4 in one double bed and one single bunk set.

Back to the latest news

Revolution in Russia

2007-08-21T22:57:00.001-07:00

"A SIGN OF THE TIMES IN RUSSIA:
THE BOMB EXPLOSION AT THE HOTEL BRISTOL, ST. PETERSBURG"
This was a story in the Daily Graphic on March 25, 1905. The report beneath the illustration read:
"The bomb explosion at the hotel here shook the building to its very foundation. Windows were smashed, and some of the walls were cracked. The man who carried the bomb is supposed to have carelessly dropped it, and he paid for his blundering with his own life. At first he was reported to be an Englishman, but it has since been established that he was a revolutionist. A number of people in the hotel were injured by the explosion, and many passers by were hurled to the ground."

The St Petersburg hotel survived, and on the eve of the Revolution 11 years later, "The Bristol, a four-ruble-a-night hotel on an avenue of leafless chestnuts, had been commandeered for the Stavka, the supreme army headquarters. The tsar took his daily walks by the River Moika with his English setters. In the evening he watched movies. His favourite was a 22-reel detective serial called "The Secrets of New York." This come from Brian Moynahan's biography of Rasputin.

The Bristol is no longer there. Other smart hotels like the Kempinski and the Pushkin have taken its place. But in 2012 a new Bristol opened on Ulitsa Rasstanaya in St Petersburg (see New Bristol in St Petersburg).

Before the Revolution there were a number of Bristols in Russia, and in any shtetl you might find a four-rouble-a-night Bristol. The handsome Bristol in Odessa, built in 1899 by the Italian architect Alexander Bernardazzi, changed its name during Soviet times to the Krasnaya, meaning red or beautiful, as in Krasnaya ploschad, Red Square. Recalling its former glory, this grand hotel in the Black Sea resort has now become the Bristol again.

Back to the latest news

Coming and going

2007-08-19T23:01:00.000-07:00

GOODBYE SHEFFIELD The 111-room Hotel Bristol in Sheffield, which was given its name by the Bristol businessmen who founded it, has just been bought by the fast-expanding Swedish Rezidor Group, and from November 7 it will be renamed the Park Inn.

HELLO RABAT Meanwhile a new Bristol is to be built in Rabat, Morocco, the first overseas enterprise by the Brazilian Bristol hotel chain, which operates 21 hotel and apartment blocks with the Bristol name in the Brazilian states of Minas Gerais, Espitito Santo and Goiás. The north African venture will have 3–4-stars with 96 one- and two- bedroom apartments, and will take around 18 months to build.

GOING UP IN KARACHI Pakistan's first six-star hotel is being built in Islamabad . The Avari Islamabad will be an all-suite hotel, and the first 200 are to be ready by early next year. Making the annoncemen, the Avari hotel group chairman Byram D Avari, said that the Avari family had been known in the hospitality industry since 1944 when his father purchased the Bristol hotel in Karachi.

LEAVING LEBANON "Many clients have left,” says Chantale Zammar, sales manager of the famous Le Bristol hotel in Beirut. “And now we have foreign journalists who always come in times of trouble, like last year during the war between Israel and Hezbollah.”

Back to the latest news

Jan Morris & the Bristol of Hav

2007-08-06T00:20:00.000-07:00

The latest Hotel Bristol to crop up in fiction appears in the imaginary eastern Mediterranean city created by the travel writer Jan Morris and revisited in her latest book, Last Letters from Hav, just published in paperback.

Back to the latest news

Grand Hotel Bristol, Rapallo

2007-08-06T00:16:00.000-07:00

The Grand Hotel Bristol Rapallo is currently researching a history of the hotel and finding that, like most hotels, few records have been kept – new managements tend to clear out old papers wholesale. It is an historic hotel, inaugurated in 1911, and the British Foreign Minister Austen Chamberlain met Benito Mussolini here in 1927. One of the hotel’s two restaurants is named after Chamberlain.

Back to the latest news

Bernini Bristol, Rome

2007-08-04T22:01:00.000-07:00

The earliest known existing hotel called Bristol is thought to be the Bristol in Rome, now the Hotel Bernini Bristol.It opened its doors in 1874 and claims to be named after the 4th Earl of Bristol, who spent time in Rome acquiring artworks for his house at Ickworth in Suffolk. It was an instant success, attracting nobility and royalty.

It has been suggested that the novelist Jane Austen stayed at a Hotel Bristol in Cork Street, Mayfair, London, in 1796. From here she wrote to her sister of her alarm at arriving in the capital:

Cork Street, Tuesday morn [August 23]

My dear Cassandra
Here I am once more in this scene of dissipation and vice, and I begin already to find my morals corrupted...

Mayfair at this time catered for passengers from the West Country, particularly Bristol and Bath, many of whom stayed in lodging houses, male preserves that resembled sporting clubs. Despite the speculation, there was no hotel called Bristol in London until one opened on the corner of Cork Street and Burlington Gardens in 1874 – the same year as the Bristol in Rome. It is likely Jane Austen was lodging with a relative.

Back to the latest news