"empty. They follow Melmoth's tracks to the top of a cliff, and see his handkerchief on a crag below them. ""Exchanging looks of silent and unutterable horror"", they return home. Honoré de Balzac wrote a follow-up story (""Melmoth Reconciled"") and considered Maturin's novel worthy of a place among Molière's ""Don Juan"", Goethe's ""Faust"" and Lord Byron's ""Manfred"" as one of the supreme icons of modern European literature. Oscar Wilde, during his travels after release from prison, called himself Sebastian Melmoth, deriving this pseudonym from the title character in his great-uncle's novel and from Saint Sebastian. Historian of English literature Walter"
"the most famous of whom was Alvise Cadamosto, an Italian explorer who worked with slave traders in Portugal, and who was born in the palace in 1432. It stayed in the da Mosto family until 1603, when Chiara da Mosto left her entire estate to Leonardo Donà dalle Rose of the Donà family, a nephew of her second husband, rather than to her da Mosto relatives, with whom she had fallen out. Between the 16th and the 18th centuries the Ca' da Mosto housed the well-known ""Albergo Leon Bianco"" (the White Lion Hotel). In 1769 and 1775 the Holy Roman"
"L'Hôtel L'Hôtel is a 5-star luxury hotel in Saint-Germain-des-Prés, Paris. When previously known as the Hôtel d'Alsace, Oscar Wilde spent his last days there in room 16, famously remarking ""I am dying beyond my means"". Other former residents include Marlon Brando, actress and singer Mistinguett, and writer Jorge Luis Borges, who said it seemed to have been ""sculpted by a cabinet maker"". The hosting of Borges in this hotel was not by chance: when he was nine, he translated Wilde's ""The Happy Prince"" into Spanish and since then he had become a big fan of his work; Borges wanted to"
"and brick exterior"", which was ""animated by an effusion of balconies, alcoves, arcades, and loggias beneath a tile roof bedecked with gables and turrets"". William Astor, motivated in part by a dispute with his aunt Caroline Webster Schermerhorn Astor, had built the Waldorf Hotel next door to her house, on the site of his father's mansion. The hotel was built to the specifications of founding proprietor George Boldt, who owned and operated the Bellevue-Stratford Hotel, a fashionable hotel on Broad Street in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, with his wife Louise. Boldt was described as ""Mild mannered, undignified, unassuming"", resembling ""a typical German"
"Rises"". Noël Coward's play ""Semi-Monde"" is perhaps the most notable work covering the hotel in detail, following the escapades of an extravagant, promiscuous fictional Paris elite between 1924 and 1926. In the Bret Easton Ellis novel ""Glamorama"", a group of supermodels turned terrorists plant a home-made bomb in the Ritz, resulting in its destruction. In ""The Da Vinci Code"", the protagonist, Robert Langdon, stays at the hotel while in Paris, as do Andrea Sachs and Miranda Priestly in Lauren Weisberger's ""The Devil Wears Prada"". The final chapter of Ian Fleming's James Bond novel ""From Russia, with Love"" is set at"
"the Bellevue-Stratford Hotel, an elite boutique hotel in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, with his wife Louise Kehrer Boldt. The original plans for the Waldorf were for a hotel with 11 stories. Boldt's wife, Louise, believed that 13 was a lucky number. She persuaded her husband to add two floors to the construction. William Astor's construction of a hotel next to his aunt's house worsened his feud with her, but, with Boldt's assistance, John Astor persuaded his mother to move uptown. The Waldorf Hotel, named after the little town of Walldorf, in Baden-Württemberg, Germany, the Astors’ ancestral home, was opened for business March"
"the parvis in the front of the Church of Saint‑Germain‑des‑Prés by the end of the Second Empire in 1871, and stopped there, sparing the maze of narrow streets between "" and the river. The quarter was also the temporary home of many musicians, artists and writers from abroad, including Richard Wagner who lived for several months on "". The writer Oscar Wilde spent his last days in the quarter, at the small, run-down hotel called the Hotel d'Alsace at , near the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. He wandered the streets alone, and spent his money he had on alcohol. He wrote"
"Belmond Hotel Caruso Belmond Hotel Caruso is a hotel located in the hill town of Ravello, near Amalfi in southern Italy. It was originally built in the 11th century as a palace by a patrician Roman family who called it the Palazzo D'Afflito - meaning ""the afflicted"", a reference to both a shipwreck they had when travelling to Constantinople and the afflictions suffered by a family martyr. This palace was largely destroyed, along with much of Ravello and the neighbouring port of Amalfi, by the Republic of Pisa, which was a warring competitor on the Mediterranean routes. The remains lay"
"Nellcôte Nellcôte (often referred to as Villa Nellcôte) is a 16-room mansion built during the Belle Époque on a headland above the sea at Villefranche-sur-Mer on the Côte d'Azur in southern France. In the late 1890s, a former banker, Eugene Thomas, built the imposing villa fronted with marble Ionic columns. Originally it bore the name of Château Amicitia. In 1919, the villa, since renamed Nellcôte, was acquired by the Bordes family, famous shipowners specialising in the transport of sodium nitrate between Chile and France. Adding infamy to its history, Nellcôte served as the headquarters of the local Gestapo during the"
"and columns are sheathed in saddle leather. And The Alpina Gstaad has traditional art as well. Hanging from the ceiling over the main staircase is a Late Baroque painting (circa 1780) measuring 28 feet by 17 feet. Antique wooden chests and hand-painted cupboards decorate several suites. Alpina Gstaad The Alpina Gstaad is a luxury 56-room hotel in the Oberbort area of Gstaad, Switzerland. It is owned by Jean Claude Mimran and Marcel Bach. It was opened in 2012 and was the first luxury hotel to be built in Gstaad for a century. The hotel was built on the site of"
"which were incorporated into the main structure. Located on Bellevue Avenue at Lakeview Avenue, Belcourt was designed by Richard Morris Hunt for thirty-three-year-old Oliver Belmont who was divorced from Sara Swan Whiting and the father of a daughter, Natica, whom he denied paternity to, during the construction of his 50,000 square foot (4,600 m²), 60 room summer villa. Based on the Louis XIII hunting lodge at Versailles, Belcourt incorporated Oliver's love of pageantry, history and horses in its magnificent interior halls, salons and ballrooms. The Belmont Stakes was named for his father and he was known for his skill as"
"Claude Philippe Claudius Charles Philippe, also known as Philippe of the Waldorf or The Host of the Waldorf, (10 December 1910—24 December 1978) was a British-born French-American restaurateur, catering director, hotelier and businessman, who was the hotel banquet manager of the prestigious Waldorf Astoria New York hotel in the 1940s and 1950s. From 1961 until 1963 he worked as executive vice president of Loews Hotels, and was responsible for the planning and building of six new New York hotels. Philippe is best remembered for founding the April in Paris Ball at the Waldorf Astoria in 1951, which he ran with"
"usual site, this time in the Oscar's Delmonico wine caves. By 1972, however the dinners had begun to lose their appeal. ""New York Magazine"" noted that the dinners were still appreciated for their ""enormous stocks of wine"" but that it no longer seemed to ""have the appeal of the other groups"". They nonetheless continued. After Philippe's death, his wife, Helga, took over planning the gentlemen's dinners, as well as coordinating the wines and greeting the attendees; she was the only woman present at these events. In 2013, entertainer Harry Belafonte recalled being signed to perform at the Waldorf-Astoria in 1959"
"die where the writer of his childhood had also died. L'Hôtel L'Hôtel is a 5-star luxury hotel in Saint-Germain-des-Prés, Paris. When previously known as the Hôtel d'Alsace, Oscar Wilde spent his last days there in room 16, famously remarking ""I am dying beyond my means"". Other former residents include Marlon Brando, actress and singer Mistinguett, and writer Jorge Luis Borges, who said it seemed to have been ""sculpted by a cabinet maker"". The hosting of Borges in this hotel was not by chance: when he was nine, he translated Wilde's ""The Happy Prince"" into Spanish and since then he had"
"public rooms and corridors throughout The Alpina Gstaad. Behind the reception desk – a large asymmetrical slab of polished wood hewn from a single fir tree – is a Bosco Soldi diptych of mixed media on cloth with colors and texture that recall rich fertile soil. Tracey Emin's pink neon ""And I Said I Love You"" sign is over the DJ area in the Lounge. The Princess by The Bruce High Quality Foundation, a silkscreen, paint on canvas of Infanta Margarita from Velásquez's Las Meninas hangs near Restaurant Sommet. Nachson Mimran, the son of Jean Claude Mimran, the hotel's majority"
"Alpina Gstaad The Alpina Gstaad is a luxury 56-room hotel in the Oberbort area of Gstaad, Switzerland. It is owned by Jean Claude Mimran and Marcel Bach. It was opened in 2012 and was the first luxury hotel to be built in Gstaad for a century. The hotel was built on the site of the Grand Hotel Alpina, which was demolished on April 11, 1995. Opposition from local residents to the building of a new hotel took thirteen years to overcome, and the hotel was completed and opened in late 2012. It was the first new large hotel built in"
"Hotel Castelar Hotel Castelar is located at the northwest intersection of May and the 9 de Julio Avenues, in the downtown Montserrat section of Buenos Aires, Argentina. Opened in 1928 as the Hotel Excelsior, the building was designed by Italian architect Mario Palanti and built by local engineer José Pinzone. The Spanish poet and dramatist, Federico García Lorca, stayed here from October 1933 to March 1934 while his play, ""Bodas de Sangre"", was being performed at the Avenida Theatre nearby; his erstwhile room has been preserved as a museum. More recently, the hotel was the site of Vice President Carlos"
"a globe of nougatine. He said that while he couldn't justify or excuse the expense, the meal was fabulous. Belmond Le Manoir aux Quat'Saisons Belmond Le Manoir aux Quat' Saisons (""Four Seasons Manor"", a.k.a. Le Manoir) is a luxury hotel-restaurant in the village of Great Milton near Oxford, in Oxfordshire, England. It is located in an historic manor house near the church that was visited by Oliver Cromwell. which in March 2014 introduced a new brand name, Belmond. At this point the hotel changed its name to Belmond Le Manoir aux Quat'Saisons. The restaurant has two Michelin stars, as well"
"of the Waldorf"" (1943), rather, reads much like an autobiography. Most of Oscar Tschirky's recollections therein are devoted to the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel and its founder, George C. Boldt, and his wife, Louise Kehrer Boldt. Oscar Tschirky Oscar Tschirky (1866 – November 6, 1950) was a Swiss-American restaurateur who was maître d'hôtel of Delmonico's Restaurant and subsequently the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in Manhattan, New York, United States. He was widely known as ""Oscar of the Waldorf"" and published a large cookbook. Oscar Tschirky was born in 1866 in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland. He left for the United States in 1883, settling in New"
"Seelbach, which contains bourbon, triple sec, two kinds of bitters and topped with a brut sparkling wine or champagne. The Seelbach Hotel was featured in the 1999 Russell Crowe/Al Pacino film ""The Insider"". The hotel has also been featured in ""The Hustler"" and""The Great Gatsby"" (2013). Seelbach Hotel The Seelbach Hilton is a historic hotel in Louisville, Kentucky, founded by Bavarian-born immigrant brothers Louis and Otto Seelbach. It opened in 1905 as the ""Seelbach Hotel"", envisioned by the Seelbach Brothers to embody the old-world grandeur of European hotels in cities such as Vienna and Paris. To do so in early"
"a property in Èze (Alpes-Maritimes) where they received a number of celebrities such as the Duke of Connaught, son of Queen Victoria, The Maharajah de Kapurthala and Charlie Chaplin. Balsan supported his wife's work with French children. They lived in their ""hotel particulier"" in Paris, 9 avenue Charles-Floquet. Consuelo Vanderbilt's ghosted autobiography ""The Glitter and The Gold"" refers to her time with Balsan as ""gold"", as opposed to the ""glitter"" of her earlier, aristocratic marriage. In it, she tells the story of the Balsans' daring escape from the Nazis through Spain to Portugal and eventually to America, where they lived"
"two sons Olaf and Egon. In the 1950s, Roger Coster, a French photographer, assumed the lease on the hotel and ran it with his Haitian wife, Laura. The hotel came to be known as the ""Greenwich Village of the Tropics"", attracting actors, writers, and artists. Some of the suites in the hotel were named after the artists and writers who frequented the hotel, including Graham Greene, James Jones, Charles Addams, and Sir John Gielgud. A New York native, Al Seitz, acquired the hotel lease in 1960. During the 1970s and early 1980s, the hotel enjoyed a brief period of fame"
"New Palace Hotel, then Reid's Palace or just ""Reid's"". The hotel was acquired by Orient-Express Hotels Ltd., which changed its name to Belmond Ltd. on 10 March 2014. At that time the hotel changed its name to Belmond Reid's Palace. The pioneer colour photographer Sarah Angelina Acland (1849–1930) stayed at the hotel during the early 20th century and took many photographs in and around the location of the hotel. The hotel had a darkroom for use by guests. Famous guests over the years have included General Fulgencio Batista, Winston Churchill, Anthony Eden, David Lloyd George, deposed emperor Karl von Habsburg,"
"became a general of Napoleon and then King of Sweden under the name Charles XIV. Former grand hotels of the Belle Époque which were in direct competition, the ""Hotel de Gassion"" and the ""Hotel de France"", are located on the ""Boulevard des Pyrénées"". The ""Hotel de Gassion"", located between the château and the Church of Saint-Martin, now houses apartments. The ""Hotel de France"", located to the east of the ""Place Royale"", now houses the services of the Communauté d'agglomération de Pau-Pyrénées and is the second decision-making centre in Pau. The ""Palais Beaumont"", originally referred to as the ""Palais d'Hiver"" [Winter"
"d'hôtel of Delmonico's Restaurant and subsequently the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in Manhattan, New York. He was widely known as ""Oscar of the Waldorf"". Because of his association with the restaurant, he capitalized on his association with food, although he had never worked as a chef. He published a large cookbook. He is also pictured on a relish bottle displayed in the lobby of the Waldorf-Astoria, along with other photos of him at the major events during his tenure as maître d'hôtel. He is credited with having created the Waldorf salad, and for aiding in the popularization of the Thousand Island dressing."
"famous guests have included Lenin, Isadora Duncan, H. G. Wells, Prince Charles, Luciano Pavarotti, Madonna, Elton John, Jack Nicholson, Vladimir Putin, Alain Delon, Gina Lollobrigida, Marcello Mastroianni, Pierre Cardin, Jean Paul Gaultier, Margaret Thatcher, Jacques Chirac, Tony Blair and U.S. President George W. Bush. Writer Mikhail Bulgakov spent his honeymoon at the hotel in 1932 and is said to have written parts of ""The Master and Margarita"" in room 412. Hotel Astoria (Saint Petersburg) Hotel Astoria () is a five-star hotel in Saint Petersburg, Russia, that first opened in December 1912. It has 213 bedrooms, including 52 suites, and is"
"were reported to have been worth £10 million. George Boldt (1851–1916), the founding proprietor, was a Prussian-born American hotelier and self-made millionaire who influenced the development of the urban hotel as a civic social center and luxury destination. His motto was ""the guest is always right"", and he became a wealthy and prominent figure internationally. The hotel was built to his specifications. He served as president and director of the Waldorf Astoria Hotel Company, as well as the Waldorf–Astoria Segar Company and the Waldorf Importation Company. He also owned and operated the Bellevue-Stratford Hotel, an elite boutique hotel on Broad"
"1914, and served in this capacity for five months. It was damaged during its hospital service, and was not renovated and reopened until 1916. In 1922 it was the site of a famous dinner hosted by Violet and Sydney Schiff and attended by Marcel Proust, Igor Stravinsky and Pablo Picasso. The ""dinner party of the century"": was immortalised in Richard Davenport-Hines's book, ""Proust at the Majestic: The Last Days of the Author Whose Book Changed Paris"". The 1st unofficial Chess Olympiad was held at the hotel in 1924. George Gershwin wrote ""An American in Paris"" while staying at the hotel"
"to Ernest Delahaye (June 1872): ""I have a pretty room, overlooking a bottomless courtyard, but three square meters wide. Rue Victor-Cousin is on the corner of the Sorbonne's square near the café du Bas-Rhin and leads to Rue Soufflot on the other end"". The French poet Raoul Ponchon spent the end of his life in the hotel. Miklós Radnóti lived in this hotel during the summers of 1937 and 1939. The Hungarian poet recalls this period in his poem ""Paris"" (1943): ""Where the Boul’ Mich’ meets the Rue / Cujas the corner slopes perceptibly"". A commemorative plaque by the hotel"
"Belmond Le Manoir aux Quat'Saisons Belmond Le Manoir aux Quat' Saisons (""Four Seasons Manor"", a.k.a. Le Manoir) is a luxury hotel-restaurant in the village of Great Milton near Oxford, in Oxfordshire, England. It is located in an historic manor house near the church that was visited by Oliver Cromwell. which in March 2014 introduced a new brand name, Belmond. At this point the hotel changed its name to Belmond Le Manoir aux Quat'Saisons. The restaurant has two Michelin stars, as well as scoring 9/10 in the ""Good Food Guide"" It is capable of serving 260 guests per day It is"
"Hôtel d'Alluye The Hôtel d'Alluye is a ""hôtel particulier"" in Blois, Loir-et-Cher, France. Built for Florimond Robertet when he was secretary and notary to Louis XII, the residence bears the name of his barony of Alluyes. On Rue Saint-Honoré near Blois Cathedral and the Château de Blois, it is now significantly smaller than it was originally as the north and west wings were destroyed between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries. Built between 1498 (or 1500) and 1508, the ""hôtel particulier"" is one of the first examples of Renaissance architecture in Blois. Its façades consist of Gothic, French Renaissance and Italian"
"de Villemessant built on the côte d'Azur la ""Villa du Soleil"" as a writers retreat. 20 years later the villa became the « Grand Hotel du Cap », today the « Hotel du Cap-Eden Roc », one of the most prestigious Palace Hotels of the World. October 1874, Villemessant is invited by his friend Jean-Baptiste Daloz to hunt in his property in Le Touquet. Fascinated by the beauty of what Villemessant calls the « Arcachon of the North », he gives his friend the idea to transform part of his property into a future sea resort. Villemessant gives it a"
"land on Fifth Avenue from 32nd to 35th streets. On March 13, 1893, John Jacob Astor Sr's grandson William Waldorf Astor opened the Waldorf Hotel on the site with the help of hotelier George Boldt. On November 1, 1897, Waldorf's cousin, John Jacob Astor IV, opened the 16-story Astoria Hotel on an adjacent site. The combined hotel had 1,300 bedrooms making it the largest hotel in the world at the time. After Boldt died, in early 1918, the hotel lease was purchased by Coleman du Pont. By the 1920s, the hotel was becoming dated and the elegant social life of"