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Find inspiration at three hotels with strong literary connections. If it’s good enough for Dostoevsky…
Le Pavillon des Lettres, Paris
If you’re mad about Baudelaire, next time you’re in Paris you can stay in a room dedicated to him. At Le Pavillon des Lettres, each of the 26 bedrooms are themed around a different writer, from Hans Christian Andersen to Emile Zola. Ours, a fourth floor superior room with a sweet little balcony overlooking the Eiffel Tower, is an ode to Diderot. Tucked away just behind the Rue du Faubourg St Honoré, t his chic cakeslice-shaped hotel is one of three within a small, family-run group.
The of fer i ng is slick but si mple: a B&B with a faint air of decadence, with plushly f ur nished, duskily coloured bedrooms, each stencilled with quotes from its writer and stocked with copies of t heir books. Then t here’s a buffet offering a delicious continental breakfast – the freshest croissants, exquisite pastries and great coffee – served in the g round f loor sa lon, wit h t ables t hat spill out on to t he st reet dur ing t he summer months, an honesty bar for late-night dr inks and a lit t le libra r y, with a roaring fire in winter. The most at mospheric rooms a re t he two topf loor junior suites under t he eaves, wit h t hei r st unning roof top v iews. While you’re just a short walk from the Champs-élysées, the Jardin des Tuileries and Le Louvre, you also can borrow bi ke s f r om t he hotel a nd ex plor e f ur t her af ield. It’s a 20-minute cycle across the river to Shakespeare & Compa ny, one of t he best bookshops i n Europe, and then you can drop into the lovely nea rby rest aura nt Bonv iva nt for lunch.
Pera Palace Hotel Jumeirah, istanbul
Whether or not Agatha Christie actually wrote Murder on the Orient Express while staying at the Pera Palace (which many claim she did), she certainly drew inspiration from it. If you’re a serious fan, you can book her favourite room (411), which comes with a replica of her type writer on the desk. The hotel’ s European-turkish restaurant is also named Agatha. The hotel, which was also popular with Ernest Hemingway and Alfred Hitchcock, and celebrates its 125 th birthday this year, sit sin the cosmopolitan Be yoğludi strict on Istanbul’ s European side and has managed to combine 19 th-century charm with contemporary additions, such as a spa.
belmond Grand Hotel europe, st Petersburg
Those familiar with Dostoevsky will know that both the author and many of his characters lived in corner rooms, so they could fully observe life on the street outside. Dostoevsky was a regular guest at this hotel and his favourite room, now named after him, is of course a corner suite. Fashioned in 1875 from three private houses given one classical façade, it became the g rand hotel that stands here today. Its Tsarinspired restaurant L’europe was the first in St Petersburg to have electric lights and is still famous for its stainedglass mural of Apollo, private alcoves and, in particular, for its beefstrog an off, still faithfully prepared to the original recipe.