THE NEW HOSPITALITY 待客新道

The plushest hotels near railway stations 毗鄰火車站的豪華酒店

THE MODERN HOTEL traces its origins back to Europe’s capital cities after the Napoleonic wars. The concept had hardly got going when the railways came along.

Rail travel was to provide the boon that the new breed of hotel owners had hoped for. A newly affluent middle class flocked to the coasts and mountains. The modern business traveller was born, too. These business travellers, then as now, need somewhere to stay – and the 19th century variety liked their stations and hotels to be close together.

So European and then American and Asian cities acquired new landmarks: grandiose, gothic railway station hotels in iron and brick. But as the 20th century wore on, the railways declined; and so the hotels and the areas around them became ever more seedy.

But now the renaissance is well underway. The great hotels have been brought back from their glum afterlife, renewed and glammed up just as the 21st century traveller rediscovers the joys of rail travel. Here are some of the best.

現代酒店的起源，可追溯至拿破崙戰爭後的歐洲各大城市。然而當鐵路出現時，這個觀念仍未流行起來。

鐵路遊旅 正是新一代酒店大亨夢寐以求的恩賜。新興的富裕中產階級蜂擁到海邊與山間遊玩，而現代的商務旅客亦隨之出現。當年的商務旅客跟現在一樣，需要一個住宿的地方而， 19世紀時的旅客都方歡酒店位於火車站附近。

自此，歐洲、美國和亞洲的城市便陸續出現新地標，這些以鐵和磚建成的哥德式火車站酒店外形皇氣豪堂 ， 派華。然而隨著20世紀，過去 鐵路業日漸沒落，這些酒店和周邊一帶地區日見失色，最後變得破敗不堪。

但現在這些酒店又再度繁榮興旺起來。21世紀的旅客重新發現鐵路遊的樂趣，於是這些宏偉的酒店陸續重拾昔日光采，再次變得煥然一新。以幾下是 家首屈一指之選。