book a stay at lodging that loves literature
Just about anywhere you go, you can sleep (perchance to dream) amid the pages of a classic -- from the DasLiteratur Hotel in Berlin to the Literature & Art Hotel in Shanghai, from the Park Plaza Sherlock Holmes in London to Hotel Esmeralda in Paris. Or perhaps, in Paris, you would prefer to spend the night at Le Pavillon des Lettres, where each alphabetized room is dedicated to an iconic writer (Rousseau... Shakespeare... Tolstoy...). Or Apostrophe Hotel, which describes itself as a boutique "poem hotel" and has letters spilling down the staircase. Or Hotel Le Marcel, inspired by Marcel Proust. Or Les Plumes Hotel, dedicated to famous lovers in literature. Of course, if you prefer Maryland to the Moulin Rouge, guestrooms at author Nora Roberts's B&B, Inn Boonsboro honor literary pairings ranging from Nick-and-Nora to Westley-and-Buttercup.
You can sleep like Harry Potter in the Wizard Chambers at London's Georgian House Hotel... or like Bilbo Baggins at the Hobbit Motel in New Zealand's Woodlyn Park... or like Leopold Bloom (James Joyce's Ulysses protagonist) at Blooms Hotel in Dublin... or like Alice at Wonderland House in Sussex (you can also get your Lewis Carroll fix at the Jabberwock Inn in Monterey, California). Of course, there are a great many hotels named after authors (whether it's Nathaniel Hawthorne or Mark Twain or John Steinbeck). And Shakespeare? You can bed down with the Bard in Stratford-upon-Avon... in London... in Sydney... even in Lithuania.
Increasingly, hotels are devoting specific rooms to favorite scribes. At Belfast's Merchant Hotel, they're named after Irish writers, poets, and playwrights. You can stay in suites named after F. Scott Fitzgerald (The Plaza, New York City), Rudyard Kipling (Raffles Hotel, Singapore), Oscar Wilde (L'Hotel, Paris), Agatha Christie (Istanbul's Pera Palace Hotel), and George Bernard Shaw (Reid's Palace, Madeira, Portugal). One of the thatched guesthouses at Campi ya Kanzi, an ecotourism camp in Kenya, is called the Hemingway Suite. The Authors' Wing in Bangkok's Mandarin Oriental honors Somerset Maugham, Joseph Conrad, Noel Coward, and James Michener. You can stay in a Writer Suite, honoring everyone from Bram Stoker to Jonathan Swift, at The Westin in Dublin. And in Newport, Oregon, the Sylvia Beach Hotel (named for the American expat who started Paris's Shakespeare and Company bookstore) offers rooms celebrating everyone from Alice Walker to Amy Tan.
Not every place can boast the 5,000 rare books and manuscripts at India's Taj Falaknuma Palace, but Portland (Oregon) offers both The Nines (with a lending library of more than 3,000 books) and The Heathman Hotel (with a display of novels signed by Nobel Prize-winners). The Book Room at The Jefferson in Washington, D.C. houses tomes signed by authors who have stayed there (from Bono to Bill Gates). Edinburgh's Sheraton Grand Hotel & Spa offers a "Books in Bedrooms" menu., and a collection of leather-bound Kindles are available at the Astor Digital Library at the St. Regis in New York City. These hotels may seem like book repositories, but Gladstone's Library in North Wales actually is, calling itself the U.K.'s only residential library. Not to be outdone, several Book and Bed stores in Japan are, yes, bookstores that offer stacked cubbies in which guests can tuck in after closing time.
In Koh Samui, Thailand, you can bed down at The Library, a "well-versed retreat" with a famous red swimming pool. At New York City's Library Hotel, each floor is dedicated to a Dewey Decimal System category. At the Eurostars Book Hotel in Munich, where each floor celebrates a different literary genre, there is a giant sculpture of an open book behind the front desk. There's a Library Suite at Vive Hotel in Waikiki. And a Library Bar (offering literary-themed cocktails) at Hotel Rex in San Francisco. And a Garden Library at Lake Austin Spa Resort in Texas. At B2 Boutique Hotel & Spa in Zurich, a spectacular Wine Library features 33,000 books, but even that may pale in comparison to a hotel in a small Portuguese town outside of Lisbon. The Literary Man boasts 30 themed rooms, cocktails named after authors... and 65,000 books.
Like literature itself, places to stay keep finding new ways to celebrate the written word. In St. Petersburg, the pattern of the carpets in the Radisson Sonya Hotel contain the initial passages of Crime and Punishment in English and Russian. Instead of a chocolate, The Betsy Hotel in Miami places a bookmark with a poem on each guest's bed. The book-stocked Prince Maurice in Mauritius has even established a literary prize. And the Typewriter Room in Singapore's Wanderlust Hotel? It's one giant typewriter.
So the options abound. Clink on a link below to, well, book a room.
You can sleep like Harry Potter in the Wizard Chambers at London's Georgian House Hotel... or like Bilbo Baggins at the Hobbit Motel in New Zealand's Woodlyn Park... or like Leopold Bloom (James Joyce's Ulysses protagonist) at Blooms Hotel in Dublin... or like Alice at Wonderland House in Sussex (you can also get your Lewis Carroll fix at the Jabberwock Inn in Monterey, California). Of course, there are a great many hotels named after authors (whether it's Nathaniel Hawthorne or Mark Twain or John Steinbeck). And Shakespeare? You can bed down with the Bard in Stratford-upon-Avon... in London... in Sydney... even in Lithuania.
Increasingly, hotels are devoting specific rooms to favorite scribes. At Belfast's Merchant Hotel, they're named after Irish writers, poets, and playwrights. You can stay in suites named after F. Scott Fitzgerald (The Plaza, New York City), Rudyard Kipling (Raffles Hotel, Singapore), Oscar Wilde (L'Hotel, Paris), Agatha Christie (Istanbul's Pera Palace Hotel), and George Bernard Shaw (Reid's Palace, Madeira, Portugal). One of the thatched guesthouses at Campi ya Kanzi, an ecotourism camp in Kenya, is called the Hemingway Suite. The Authors' Wing in Bangkok's Mandarin Oriental honors Somerset Maugham, Joseph Conrad, Noel Coward, and James Michener. You can stay in a Writer Suite, honoring everyone from Bram Stoker to Jonathan Swift, at The Westin in Dublin. And in Newport, Oregon, the Sylvia Beach Hotel (named for the American expat who started Paris's Shakespeare and Company bookstore) offers rooms celebrating everyone from Alice Walker to Amy Tan.
Not every place can boast the 5,000 rare books and manuscripts at India's Taj Falaknuma Palace, but Portland (Oregon) offers both The Nines (with a lending library of more than 3,000 books) and The Heathman Hotel (with a display of novels signed by Nobel Prize-winners). The Book Room at The Jefferson in Washington, D.C. houses tomes signed by authors who have stayed there (from Bono to Bill Gates). Edinburgh's Sheraton Grand Hotel & Spa offers a "Books in Bedrooms" menu., and a collection of leather-bound Kindles are available at the Astor Digital Library at the St. Regis in New York City. These hotels may seem like book repositories, but Gladstone's Library in North Wales actually is, calling itself the U.K.'s only residential library. Not to be outdone, several Book and Bed stores in Japan are, yes, bookstores that offer stacked cubbies in which guests can tuck in after closing time.
In Koh Samui, Thailand, you can bed down at The Library, a "well-versed retreat" with a famous red swimming pool. At New York City's Library Hotel, each floor is dedicated to a Dewey Decimal System category. At the Eurostars Book Hotel in Munich, where each floor celebrates a different literary genre, there is a giant sculpture of an open book behind the front desk. There's a Library Suite at Vive Hotel in Waikiki. And a Library Bar (offering literary-themed cocktails) at Hotel Rex in San Francisco. And a Garden Library at Lake Austin Spa Resort in Texas. At B2 Boutique Hotel & Spa in Zurich, a spectacular Wine Library features 33,000 books, but even that may pale in comparison to a hotel in a small Portuguese town outside of Lisbon. The Literary Man boasts 30 themed rooms, cocktails named after authors... and 65,000 books.
Like literature itself, places to stay keep finding new ways to celebrate the written word. In St. Petersburg, the pattern of the carpets in the Radisson Sonya Hotel contain the initial passages of Crime and Punishment in English and Russian. Instead of a chocolate, The Betsy Hotel in Miami places a bookmark with a poem on each guest's bed. The book-stocked Prince Maurice in Mauritius has even established a literary prize. And the Typewriter Room in Singapore's Wanderlust Hotel? It's one giant typewriter.
So the options abound. Clink on a link below to, well, book a room.
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