Book yourself a room with a view of history...
Once a landmark site on Wiltshire Boulevard in Los Angeles, the Ambassador Hotel has been gone now for more than a decade. Once upon a time it was one of the city’s celebrity hang-outs, not least for its famous Cocoanut Grove nightclub, and as the venue where a number of the Academy Awards were held between 1930 and 1943.
And then, 50 years ago this coming Tuesday, at just after midnight on June 5, 1968, Bobby Kennedy wrapped up his presidential campaign speech and then took a shortcut, with his handlers in tow, through the hotel’s kitchen. And straight into the bullet fired from the gun of Sirhan Sirhan. He died from his wounds the following day and the Kennedy dream died all over again, almost five years after Dallas.
You can no longer stay in the Ambassador as it was demolished in 2005, but if you have a penchant for all things historical, then there are numerous hotels around the world that will satisfy your curiosity.
Here are six that did it for me…
1. The Astoria, St Petersburg, Russia
I was determined to stay here on my first visit to the Russian city back in the late 1990s. A bit ‘faded grandeur’ then, it has since been taken over by the Rocco Forte group. Nothing can change its historic credentials however, for it was here that the American journalist John Reed was staying when the October Revolution kicked into action in the city back in 1917.
His subsequent book – Ten Days That Shook The World – gives a riveting account of that time. (Warren Beatty later played Reed in the film, Reds.) I particularly recall the hotel’s long, extra-wide corridors; you could just imagine Reed strolling along them as all hell was breaking loose all over St Petersburg.
2. Grand Hotel a Villa Feltrinelli, Gargnano, Italy
Not only the most beautiful and exquisite place I have ever stayed, but also a hotel with a wonderful history. This 19th century villa stands on eight acres of grounds, on the shores of Lake Garda.
With just 21 rooms, it has been a hotel only since 2001, and is utterly beautiful. And its historic claim to fame? It was here that Mussolini and his family were held under house arrest between 1943 and 1945. I could certainly think of worse places to be holed up.
3. The Peninsula Hotel, Paris, France
Lovely hotel near the city’s Arc de Triomphe. Here, it’s the hotel’s Kleber bar that’s the historic focus, for it was in the part of the hotel now occupied by the bar that the Paris Peace Accords were signed in 1973, heralding the end of the Vietnam War. A lovely place to sit, sip a chilled glass of wine, and imagine the scene on that January day when Henry Cabot Lodge and his fellow signatories finally brought the horror of that war to an end.
4. Pera Palace Hotel, Istanbul, Turkey
With views out over the Golden Horn, the hotel is situated in the city’s Beyoglu district.
Originally built in 1892 to accommodate passengers who had arrived on the Orient-Express from Paris, for me it was the Agatha Christie connection that first drew me to the hotel.
For it was here that the writer actually wrote one of her most famous novels. Yes, you’ve guessed it – Murder on the Orient Express. And despite a major refurbishment when the hotel was closed from 2006 until 2010, the writer’s room there is still perfectly preserved in her memory.
I first had dinner in the Pera Palace back in 1983. In 2013, I returned to the revamped hotel. Despite the ‘upgrade’ it is still as atmospheric as ever.
5. The American Colony, Jerusalem, Israel
Gorgeous hotel in East Jerusalem. I didn’t actually stay here but had dinner one warm summer’s night out in the old courtyard.
This is a hotel where the great and the good – from politicians to writers to Hollywood celebrities – have all checked in over the years.
It’s also the place, however, where one of the bed-sheets was turned into a white flag in 1917, to indicate a willingness to start the negotiations that culminated in the end of Ottoman rule and the beginning of what became known as the British Mandate.
6. Hotel Ritz, Paris, France.
The first time my late husband and I attempted to pitch up here for a drink we were politely, but firmly, turned away when we were halfway to the bar.
Gerry’s scruffy, well-worn, black leather jacket, together with my jeans and hair soaked from a heavy shower, may have had something to do with that.
Anyway, if at first you don’t succeed and all that... and on our next Paris visit we made it into the holy of holies. It’s beautiful, of course, if not quite my taste.
But if you visit, just wander around the hotel and cast your mind back to World War Two, when Paris was under the German occupation.
For it was here, in the Ritz, that the Germans set up their Luftwaffe headquarters. You can almost hear the jackboots striding up and down the corridors.
It was also leaving here, of course, on that fateful night in August 1997, that Princess Diana was last seen alive.