Until recently, few Parisian hotels dared to distract from the classic aesthetics of the city itself. The décor of its gilded palace hotels, single-minded embassies of French heritage, was, largely, fussy and excessively impersonal, as if a misplaced streak of color could break the city’s spell. Today the capital is finally overcoming its self-seriousness, thanks in part to its vibrant post-Brexit ascendancy in the contemporary arts and culture scenes. Many of its new hotels seek to delight rather than simply impress, and often conjure other worlds, as in the Marais’s Maison Proust, a candlelit Belle Époque fantasy half-hidden behind tasseled indigo velvet curtains, or the nearby Le Grand Mazarin, fashioned by the London-based Swedish designer Martin Brudnizki from contrasting styles and eras, all in a swirl of candy colors. “It took longer than New York and London,” says the Italian architect and designer Fabrizio Casiraghi, “but Paris is at last discovering the kind of small hotel that has something to say.”
Extroverted new hot spots typically pop up in the fashionable areas of the Right Bank, like the Marais, and the lively streets around the former red-light district Pigalle, now home to La Fantaisie. Also designed by Brudnizki, the pistachio and pastel yellow 73-room hotel, which opened in July, is a fanciful bucolic escape, with fruit trees growing on its rooftop bar and botanical mosaics tiling a trio of Roman-bath-style dipping pools; a dainty trellis-clad garden adjoins the California-inspired restaurant Golden Poppy, overseen by the San Francisco-based French chef Dominique Crenn.
Ahead of Paris’s upcoming Summer Olympic Games, and amid a yearslong tourism boom, a handful of attention-worthy boutique hotels are also arriving in quieter and lesser-known pockets of the city. L’Eldorado, which opened this July following a four-year renovation by the French hoteliers Pierre and Élodie Moussié and Sophie Richard, sits in the villagelike heart of the 17th Arrondissement, the upscale but unpretentious Batignolles. The romantic new neighborhood institution exudes a retro, cheetah-print and rattan-accented glamour that extends to a detached 19th-century house at the rear of a festive courtyard garden. Entering one of its 26 guest rooms evokes the sensation of slipping into a maximally patterned Victorian jewel box, cushioned from ceiling to bedspread in a lush House of Hackney velvet or linen print.
Across the Seine, Casiraghi is restoring a touch of wanderlust to Saint-Placide, the residential neighborhood where, the designer says, “truly Parisian, very bourgeois” locals still outnumber tourists. Named the Hôtel des Grands Voyageurs, this latest property has all the streamlined curves and restless
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The highest echelon of hotels know how to take an experience and bed it into something that lives on in the heart. The world’s finest perfumiers do a remarkably similar job. So it’s fitting that - increasingly - the two are coming together as hoteliers create brilliantly evocative scents - and perfumiers pay homage to their favorite hotels creating an experiential circle of glorious memories.
The 43 luxury suites of White Rock of Kos, a adults-only 5* luxury hotel, have been designed to the highest standards to offer the perfect retreat on Kos island.
The acquisition operation has benefited from the expert guidance of the consulting firm Bluebull, an investment banking firm specializing in mergers and acquisitions for technology companies, and the specialized law firm Cuatrecasas.
Black Friday is here and there's no better time to shop — or plan for your next trip. Take advantage of the deals below to score a discounted hotel, flight, cruise, and more to make 2024 your best year yet.
Hotel bars have had a bit of a patchy reputation in the last few decades, often with drab, soulless decor and an uninspired clientele. But recently, they’ve come into a category of their own as somewhere you would choose to spend your night, even if you’re not a guest. They employ pioneering bar professionals who create avant-garde drinks menus and have brought much-needed pizzazz back into the surroundings. Here are four hotel bars in Europe you’ll want to have on your radar for your next visit.
When I caught up with 89-year-old Dr. Jane Goodall, she was visiting the Aspen Center for Environmental Studies, in Colorado, where she gave three lectures to local school children on behalf of the Jane Goodall Institute and her youth organization Roots & Shoots. It was early autumn in Colorado and the last hummingbirds of summer dashed from flower to flower before embarking on their fall migration. The animal expert, who admits to not only loving birds, but all living things, was in her element among the wild landscape.
In September, hours after landing in Paris, I headed straight to Signature Montmartre, a French-Korean bistro friends had been lavishing with praise. But already this is a series of words I find startling. I had lived and worked in Paris awhile during college; I go back when I can; until this trip, I didn't recall noticing a Korean shop or restaurant here. The bistro's lights shone from large windows like an inviting beacon, guiding me to food that was, as reported, astonishing: French cuisine shot through with distinctly Korean flavors, like tender prawn-filled perilla in a curry aioli, followed by a fig tart with jujube cream, one of the most delicate, fascinating pastries I've ever had.
New Hotels in the Cayman Islands for 2024 Scheduled to open in Q2 2024 is Hotel Indigo Grand Cayman. The 282-room 10-storey beachfront property will provide an upper midscale experience featuring multiple restaurants, a 6,700 square foot ballroom, a pool deck and a rooftop bar. Indigo’s restaurants and bars around the world are known as a favourite destination for visitors and locals alike. With sustainability in mind, the hotel is being built to LEED standards, which ensures high-performance buildings that have less of an impact on the environment. Hotel Indigo will use a geothermal/ice storage combination and will feature insulated glazing throughout to reduce energy consumption. The latest in Cayman real estate developer, Dart’s, hospitality portfolio, Hotel Indigo is expected to generate several hundred jobs when it opens. In 2022, Dart launched its Hospitality Training Programme, which provides Caymanians with the opportunity to obtain first-hand industry experience via a three-month work experience within the Dart hospitality portfolio.
Temperatures may be dropping, but winter escapes are heating up, and low-cost airline French Bee is offering amazing trips from Paris to Tahiti starting as low as $387.