Sunday, November 28, 2010

Hôtel Lambert


Hôtel Lambert is a hôtel particulier on Quai Anjou on the eastern tip of the Île Saint-Louis, Paris IVème; the name Hôtel Lambert was a sobriquet that designated a nineteenth-century political faction of Polish exiles, who gathered there.



Architectural history

The Palace at the tip of the Isle Saint-Louis in the heart of Paris, was designed by the architect Louis Le Vau, and built between 1640 and 1644, originally for the financier Jean-Baptiste Lambert (died 1644) and continued by his younger brother Nicolas Lambert, later president of the Chambre des Comptes. For Nicolas Lambert the interiors were decorated by Charles Le Brun, François Perrier and Eustache Le Sueur, producing one of the finest, most innovative and iconographically most coherent examples of mid-seventeenth-century domestic architecture and decorative painting in France. Both painters worked on the internal decoration for almost five years, producing the gallant allegories of Le Brun's grand Galerie d'Hercule (still in situ) and the small Cabinet des Muses, with five canvases by Le Sueur that were purchased for the royal collection and are now in the Louvre, and the earlier ensemble, the Cabinet de l'Amour, which in its original configuration featured an alcove for a canopied bed upon which the lady of the house would receive visitors, according to the custom of the day; significantly the alcove was eliminated about 1703. All ensembles featured themes of love and marriage; the paintings have since been dispersed.

An entrance gives onto the central square courtyard round which the hôtel was built.A wing extends to the right at the rear, embracing a walled garden.At the same time Louis Le Vau constructed a residence for himself right next to the Hôtel Lambert. He lived there between 1642 and 1650. It was the birthplace of all of his children and the death place of his mother. After the architect's death in 1670 his hôtel was bought by the La Haye family, who owned the other palace as well. Both buildings were then joined and their façades combined.

In the 1740s, the Marquise du Châtelet and Voltaire, her lover, used the Hôtel Lambert as their Paris residence when not at her country estate in Cirey. The Marquise was famed for her salon there. Later, the Marquis du Châtelet sold the Lambert to Claude Dupin and his wife Louise-Marie Dupin, who carried on the tradition of the salon. The Dupins were ancestors to the writer George Sand, who because of her relationship with the Polish composer Chopin was also a frequent guest there of the nineteenth century Polish owners of the property.

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Hôtel Ritz Paris

The Hôtel Ritz is a hotel located at 15 Place Vendôme, in the heart of Paris, France. It is one of the most prestigious and luxurious hotels in the world and is one of the seven recognized Parisian palace hotels. Established in 1898, it is the oldest Ritz Hotel in the world.



History

The building was constructed in the early part of the 18th century as a private dwelling. In 1854 it was acquired by the Péreire brothers who made it the head office of their Crédit Mobilier financial institution.

The façade was designed by Jules Hardouin Mansart. Converted to a luxury hotel by Swiss hotelier César Ritz, it opened on June 1, 1898. Together with the culinary talents of minority partner Auguste Escoffier, Ritz made the hotel synonymous with opulence, service, and fine dining, as embodied in the term ritzy.

The Hôtel Ritz consists of the Vendôme and the Cambon buildings with rooms facing Place Vendôme and on the opposite side, rooms overlooking its famous garden. The hotel became a favorite of many of the world's wealthiest people, with luxurious suites named for some of its notable patrons from the past. These include Ernest Hemingway, for whom a bar in the hotel was named, and F. Scott Fitzgerald, Marcel Proust, King Edward VII of the United Kingdom, Iranian leader Reza Shah, Rudolph Valentino, Charlie Chaplin, Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich, Maurice Chevalier, Jean-Paul Sartre, Elton John, plus couturier Coco Chanel who made the Ritz her home for more than thirty years.

The Ritz today

The Hôtel Ritz Paris currently offers 159 rooms, a two-Michelin-starred restaurant, two bars and a casual dining restaurant. The rooms start at €770 a night. Suites start at €1,600 and can go up to €13,650 a night for the most prestigious ones (Suite Impériale). The hotel's restaurant, L'Espadon, was awarded a second star by the 2009 edition of the influential Michelin Red Guide.

It is owned by the businessman Mohamed Al-Fayed. In 2010, many years after the death of his son, he wants to sell the hotel.

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Friday, November 19, 2010

Hôtel de Ville, Paris Reconstruction

Reconstruction
Reconstruction of the hall lasted from 1873 through 1892 and was directed by architects Théodore Ballu and Édouard Deperthes following an architectural contest. Ballu also built the Church of La Trinité in the IXe arrondissement and the belfry of the town hall of the Ier arrondissement, opposite the Louvre's east facade. He also restored the Saint-Jacques Tower, a Gothic church tower in a square 150 metres to the west of the Hôtel de Ville.

The architects rebuilt the interior of the Hôtel de Ville within the stone shell that had survived the fire. While the rebuilt Hôtel de Ville is, from the outside, a copy of the 16th-century French Renaissance building that stood before 1871, the new interior was based on an entirely new design, with ceremonial rooms lavishly decorated in the 1880s style.

The central ceremonial doors under the clock are flanked by allegorical figures of Art, by Laurent Marqueste, and Science, by Jules Blanchard. Some 230 other sculptors were commissioned to produce 338 individual figures of famous Parisians on each facade, along with lions and other sculptural features. The sculptors included prominent academicians like Ernest-Eugène Hiolle and Henri Chapu, but easily the most famous was Auguste Rodin. Rodin produced the figure of the 18th-century mathematician Jean le Rond d'Alembert, finished in 1882.

The statue on the garden wall on the south side is of Étienne Marcel, the most famous holder of the post of prévôt des marchands (provost of the merchants) which predated the office of mayor. Marcel came to a sticky end, lynched in 1358 by an angry mob after trying to assert the city's powers a little too energetically.

The decor featured murals by the leading painters of the day, including Raphaël Collin, Jean-Paul Laurens, Puvis de Chavannes, Henri Gervex, Aimé Morot and Alfred Roll. Most can still be seen as part of a guided tour of the building.


Political venue

Since the French Revolution, the building has been the scene of a number of historical events, notably the proclamation of the French Third Republic in 1870 and the famous speech by Charles de Gaulle on 25 August 1944 during the Liberation of Paris when he greeted the crowd from a front window.

The Hôtel de Ville was for many years the fief of Jacques Chirac, France's president from 1995 until May 2007, and was the site of a scandal centering on both illegal jobs given to Chirac's party members and an extravagant entertainment budget.

The current mayor, Bertrand Delanoë, a socialist and the city's first openly gay leader, shares some of Marcel's ambition and almost shared his fate. He was stabbed in the building in 2002 during the first all-night, city-wide Sleepless Night (Nuit Blanche) festival when the doors of the long-inaccessible building were thrown open to the public. But Delanoë recovered and has not lost his zeal for access, later converting the mayor's sumptuous private apartments into a crèche

(day nursery) for the children of municipal workers.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Hôtel de Ville, Paris

The Hôtel de Ville (French pronunciation: [otɛl də vil], City Hall) in Paris, France, is the building housing the City of Paris's administration. Standing on the place de l'Hôtel de Ville (formerly the place de Grève) in the city's IVe arrondissement, it has been the location of the municipality of Paris since 1357. It serves multiple functions, housing the local administration, the Mayor of Paris (since 1977), and also serves as a venue for large receptions. The Mayor of Paris is Bertrand Delanoë, since 2007.

It is located near the metro station: Hôtel de Ville.

History


Events at the Hôtel de Ville (left) during the July Revolution, by Joseph Beaume. Two wings were built a few years later.


Hôtel de Ville, Paris. Rebuilt in the 1870s in its original French Renaissance style inspired by the Châteaux of the Loire Valley.

In July 1357, Étienne Marcel, provost of the merchants (i.e. mayor) of Paris, bought the so-called maison aux piliers ("House of Pillars") in the name of the municipality on the gently sloping shingle beach which served as a river port for unloading wheat and wood and later merged into a square, the Place de Grève (French for "Square of the Strand"), a place where Parisians often gathered, particularly for public executions. Ever since 1357, the City of Paris's administration has been located on the same location where the Hôtel de Ville stands today. Before 1357, the city administration was located in the so-called parloir aux bourgeois ("Parlour of Burgesses") near the Châtelet.

In 1533, King Francis I decided to endow the city with a city hall which would be worthy of Paris, then the largest city of Europe and Christendom. He appointed two architects: Italian Dominique de Cortone, nicknamed Boccador because of his red beard, and Frenchman Pierre Chambiges. The House of Pillars was torn down and Boccador, steeped in the spirit of the Renaissance, drew up the plans of a building which was at the same time tall, spacious, full of light and refined. Building work was not finished until 1628 during the reign of Louis XIII.

During the next two centuries, no changes were made to the edifice which was the stage for several famous events during the French Revolution (notably the murder of the last provost of the merchants Jacques de Flesselles by an angry crowd on 14 July 1789 and the coup of 9 Thermidor Year II when Robespierre was shot in the jaw and arrested in the Hôtel de Ville with his followers). Eventually, in 1835, on the initiative of Rambuteau, préfet of the Seine département, two wings were added to the main building and were linked to the facade by a gallery, to provide more space for the expanded city government.

During the Franco-Prussian War, the building played a key role in several political events. On 30 October 1870, revolutionaries broke into the building and captured the Government of National Defence, while making repeated demands for the establishment of a communard government. The existing government was rescued by soldiers who broke into the Hôtel de Ville via an underground tunnel built in 1807, which still connects the Hôtel de Ville with a nearby barracks. On 18 January 1871, crowds gathered outside the building to protest against speculated surrender to the Prussians, and were dispersed by soldiers firing from the building, who inflicted several casualties. The Paris Commune chose the Hôtel de Ville as its headquarters, and as anti-Commune troops approached the building, Commune extremists set fire to the Hôtel de Ville destroying almost all extant public records from the French Revolutionary period. The blaze gutted the building, leaving only a stone shell.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Monday, November 8, 2010

Hotelschool The Hague



“Hotelschool The Hague” is an international university specializing in hospitality management located in The Hague, the Netherlands. The main facility of Hotelschool The Hague lies just outside the city centre of The Hague, close to other International organizations and the Scheveningen beach, the most famous beach in the Netherlands.

Over the years it has become one of the best Hotel Schools in the world, and is recognized as such by the business community as well as by the Dutch government. The World Tourism Organization has placed Hotelschool The Hague on its list of the "best hospitality training centers of the world".


History

  • ‘’Hotelschool The Hague’’ was founded in 1929 by HORECAF, the former employers’ organization in the hotel and catering sector.
  • In 2002, Hotelschool The Hague opened a branch in Amsterdam that offers exactly the same curriculum.
  • In 2004, a comparative research study “Mapping Knowledge” by the Dutch Ministry of Education has shown Hotelschool The Hague to be the best University of Professional Education in the Netherlands.
  • In 2006, Hotelschool The Hague was described as one of the best three international centers of hotel management by "Caterer & Hotel keeper"
  • Hotelschool The Hague was selected by the Dutch Ministry of Education for an experiment to increase the tuition fees gradually, as the course offered 'a strong focus on the development of the personality, international orientation of staff, students and research field. Students are not only being taught how to be hospitable, but how to run a profitable business too. The added value of the course is founded by the institution's approach: small scaled education with eye for high quality'.

Programmes

Bachelor in Business Administration (BBA.HM)

Hotelschool The Hague offers a single Bachelor programme on its campuses in The Hague and Amsterdam. The programme is taught in English for both national as international students. The 4 year Bachelor course results in the internationally recognized Bachelor’s Degree Business Administration in Hotel Management. As from September 2008 a new curriculum is introduced, covering the following key area's:

  • International Hospitality
  • International Business
  • International Management

The university offers a Fast Track Programme too for students with previous hospitality qualifications. The first year of the regular Bachelor programme is replaced by a special 6 week programme in summer, the rest of the course is merely comparable with the regular course.

wikipedia.org source

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Munich hotels: Comfort Hotel Andi Munich City Center


Hotel address: Landwehrstr. 33, Munich, DE
Postal code: 80336
On the map: 48.1363 latitude and 11.5606 longitude
Average price per night in Comfort Hotel Andi Munich City Center - $86.89. High hotel rate - $160.41. Comfort Hotel Andi Munich City Center has 30 rooms and 5 floors. It is allow in Comfort Hotel Andi Munich City Center to bring pets with you. Absolutely each Comfort Hotel Andi Munich City Center room is equipped with modern TV. Hotel has hair dryer in every bathroom. Comfort Hotel Andi Munich City Center has family rooms available.

It is not so difficult to find Comfort Hotel Andi Munich City Center location on Germany and Munich interative map. Mapmonde.org give opportunity to see right now Comfort Hotel Andi Munich City Center interative map! Okay, bellow you see Munich and place where Comfort Hotel Andi Munich City Center is situated. Now, you can press satellite button and scroll up to see the area and place of interest near Comfort Hotel Andi Munich City Center. Press "Book Now!" link if you like hotel, location or looking for downtown luxury hotels booking in Munich.
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Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Wonderful old-world Parisian Hotel


This was a wonderful old-world Paris Hotel steeped with history and tradition. Conveniently located on the famous Rue de Rivoli, the hotel is within the Marais area of Paris which is a very hip, old and now gay area of Paris. It felt very safe and had a great vibe. The hotel itself is well serviced by a lift and has a first floor reception with attentive staff. The breakfast room is a must-visit, and the rooms themselves are well sound-proofed but have basic amenities - no more than 2-star. The attraction with this hotel is the decor - it is beautifully wall-papered and trinkets and photos and other interesting things adorn the walls. Our only beef was the lax security around the keys. As tenants we had full access to other room keys when returning our own keys if the staff were not at the front desk. We felt this was the only quibble about what was a most-enjoyable stay. It is a must-do if you are looking for experiencing Paris

We selected this hotel to spend a short break in because of its position, on the edge of the Marais, and its value.
We found the location excellent as we could walk or 'metro' to anywhere we needed. The nearest metro to the hotel is Hotel de Ville. Some previous reviewers complained of the noise, but what do you expect in a prime position in Paris? It's the bustle and life on the streets that give the city its flavour. Anyway the rooms have double glazing and your own air conditioner, so close the windows!
All rooms appear to be en-suite and there is an electric hairdryer in the bathroom. Staff are very friendly and helpful, and speak English.
There is a pattisserie/cafe in the square next door who do wicked hot chocolate and croissants for breakfast.
We will certainly return to this small, typically French hotel.


You will find links to most touristic attractions in Paris in the section Paris Hotels - Directory. We have also put together a lot of useful information for the traveler including public transportation in Paris, hotels in Paris for disabled travelers, weather in Paris and past weather statistics, wifi hot spots in Paris... Click on Paris Practical Information below for more details.

Source : tripadvisor.com. Visit it for more information :) Read More ..