Christmas Specials | BY INVITATION: FAVOURITE HOTELS

Somewhere special to stay

Tired of ho-hum hosts and boring bedrooms, we asked Caroline Raphael—editor and co-owner of “The Good Hotel Guide”*—to tell us her likes and dislikes about European hotels, and to reveal some of her favourites

|

SOME travellers like chain hotels. They seek the security of waking up in Birmingham, Bangkok or Barcelona and knowing exactly where everything is: the bathroom door, the tables for books and spectacles, the mini-bar. Such bleak places are not for me. I prefer a hotel with character, even if I must put up with the odd missing plug or a creaky bed. Human warmth, good food and a beautiful setting more than compensate.

This article appeared in the Christmas Specials section of the print edition under the headline “Somewhere special to stay”

All sewn up?

From the December 20th 1997 edition

Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents

Explore the edition

Discover more

Rosemont

Inside the last true political machine in America

What a town is like when one family runs everything

Lion at Steve Martin's working wildlife.

AI is stalking the last lions of Hollywood

The first actors to lose their jobs to artificial intelligence are four-legged


The truth about the passenger jet Putin’s men shot down

Investigating MH17, the crime that presaged the war in Ukraine


Meet the boffins and buccaneers drilling for hydrogen

The search is on for a clean fuel that could one day replace oil

The best sailors in the world

Why the vaka, vehicle for the extraordinary story of the peopling of Oceania, is enjoying a revival

Oceania’s wayfinding skills

The art of getting a vessel and its occupants from one place on a vast ocean to another