- Hotel Bristol
Since the mid 19th century scores - perhaps hundreds - of
hotel s throughout the world have carried the name Bristol. They are traditionally upscale, offering a high standard of accommodation. These hotels had no connection with each other apart from the name, which implied the promise of quality, and may have become popular in part because 'Bristol' is easy to say in any language, even when transliterated intoCyrillic . Evoking the Victorian Golden Age of Travel, many of their colorful and elegant luggage labels have become the centerpieces of ephemera collections, as shown in the embedded image.The number of Bristol hotels probably peaked in the 1920s. There was one in Burlington Gardens in London, and the Bristol in
Mar del Plata , Argentina, was regarded as the finest hotel inSouth America . A revolutionary's bomb tore apart the Bristol inSt Peterburg in 1905 and the Bristol inCopenhagen providedLeon Trotsky with an alibi following his 1936 trial – he was accused of plotting againstStalin at the hotel, which at that time had in fact burnt down.Name origins
Two possible origins of the name are the association with the English city of
Bristol , and the supposed endorsement ofFrederick Hervey , the 4thEarl of Bristol and Bishop of Derry (1730–1803), who spent much of his life traveling the continent, demanding high standards of hospitality. It is, however, hard to discover a hotel with that name before 1870.About 150 hotels called Bristol remain today, mostly in France, Italy, Switzerland and Germany. These include a number of notable establishments.
Upmarket
The five-star luxury hotel in
Vienna opposite theVienna State Opera House is now one of the most exclusive hotels in Austria and arguably the world after being restructured by the famous hotelierGeorg Hochfilzer . It has hosted many historical figures includingTeddy Roosevelt . It was here that thePrince of Wales andWallis Simpson sojourned at the height of their affair, in 1936; the most sumptuous suite is named after him.Warsaw's 1901 Hotel Bristol is on the ancient and elegant
Krakowskie Przedmieście inPoland 's capital. It was thoroughly refurbished, in its original style, in the 1990s and re-opened byLady Thatcher .Le Bristol inParis , opened in 1925, is one of only five palace hotels in the city, and its pedigree is immaculate.P.G. Wodehouse was kept there by the Germans duringWorld War II .Suha Arafat had a suite there at the time ofYassar Arafat 's death.Le Bristol is one of the best known hotels in
Beirut , and the Bristol inSkopje , Macedonia, whereDame Rebecca West was alleged to have stayed when researching "Black Lamb and Grey Falcon ", was the only city hotel to survive the1963 Skopje earthquake . The Bristol inOslo was the first place that Norwegians ever heard live jazz, in 1921, the year that it opened, and it still has a reputation as a music venue.More recently, The Bristol Hotel in
New Delhi, India , was opened in1997 . It has become a Landmark in Gurgoan as the first Luxury five-star hotel.Downmarket
Some hotels bearing the name are downmarket. In 1988
Valerie Solanas , author of theS.C.U.M. Manifesto and attempted assassin ofAndy Warhol , died in theSRO (single room only)Bristol Hotel San Francisco .LL Cool J 'sJamaica, Queens Bristol Hotel song focuses onprostitution .Newer
New hotels also carry the name Bristol, such as the Bristol in
San Diego , which has Warhol and other art on its walls, and the Bristol inSheffield , Yorkshire, which got its name because that's where its backers came from – another reason for naming a hotel Bristol, just as the Bristol Hotel inSteamboat Springs, Colorado , is named after Police Chief Everett Bristol, who built it in 1948.Naming hotels Bristol is so widespread that it has crept into fiction, figuring as a landmark in
Jan Morris 's book about the mythical city-state of "Hav " (2006). Bristol Queens, about a fictitious Bristol Hotel in New York, is the subject of a song byLL Cool J .Further reading
"High Times at the Hotel Bristol: Twenty Bedtime Tales", by Roger Williams (ISBN 978-0-9555376-0-8, 2007)"The Mitred Earl: An Eighteenth-Century Eccentric" by Brian Fothergill (Faber & Faber 1974)
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