Hôtel Continental

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This article is about the hotel in France. For the hotel in Vietnam, see Hotel Continental, Ho Chi Minh City.
The "Salle Napoléon" is actually a revival of Louis XIV style.
The "Salle Napoléon" is actually a revival of Louis XIV style.

The Hôtel Continental, 3, rue de Castiglione, corner of the rue de Rivoli, facing the Tuileries Garden, Paris, which opened in April 1878,[1] was designed by Charles Garnier's nephew Henri Blondel and was intended to be the most luxurious hotel in Paris at the time. It occupied the full block that was the former premises of the Ministry of Finance, (burned in 1871) which had been designed by François-Hippolyte Destailleur in 1817, following the Bourbon Restoration.[2] The Hôtel Continental remained the largest hotel in Paris for decades; the Russian Grand Dukes habitually stayed there;[3] at the Liberation of Paris, bedsheets were hung from its windows as cheerful flags of surrender.[4] The hotel remains in business as The Westin Paris, retaining some of its Louis XIV-style reception rooms.

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Karl Baedeker, Paris and Its Environs, 1878.
  2. ^ see note).
  3. ^ Notes by Lord Hardinge.
  4. ^ Vintage photo