INTRODUCTION
(originally appeared in August 2012)

Claridge's, London
 

 

 

 

 
   
     Welcome to Frank Pleasants’ hotel musings.  This is NOT a site to reserve a hotel or to look for travel discounts.    It’s just a place to reminisce about hotels and restaurants within  them, and sometimes just about life, my life.    

I have a passion for hotels. I kind of collect them.  I collect impressions and experiences.  I like to know about their history and about the people who work in them.
 

Raffles, Singapore
When personnel in the best hotels and restaurants are really good, they can attain a kind of genius.  I used to dream of being the maître d’hôtel at the Ritz in Paris or the concierge at the Gritti in Venice; but if I have one exceptional quality, it is my lucidity.  I know that, to say the least, genius is missing.  So I enjoy observing from the sidelines.
 
A word about myself.  I am an American, resettled in Europe over 40 years ago, briefly in London, then Paris; so I’ve lived a lot longer out of America than in.  I’m not exclusively riveted to grand palace-type lodgings, but to be fair, when given the choice, I do tend to prefer them.
 
The Biltmore, Los Angeles

If not out-and-out poor, I have never had more than modest means.  Which is to say, dining at the Ritz and sleeping at Raffles have always meant a bit of saving and budgetary planning, and have never become routine. 
 

Even though I have stayed at a few of the world’s finest, and lunched or breakfasted at many more, the majority of my experience is limited to the deliciously rewarding pastime of strolling through hotel lobbies.
 
In sum, I am a collector of memories, and I enjoy sharing them. 
 
Hotel Normandy, Deauville

You will find on the top right of this page “MY HOTELS,” a growing collection of hotel photos.  I’ll be adding to them periodically, and writing about some of them.  To enter, just click on the thumbnail.  The same applies to “HOTEL LOOS,” where you’ll find some of the snazziest toilets you’re ever likely to see.  The third gallery, “SCRAPBOOK,” is a more personal collection of hotel-related snapshops, mainly friends and family over the years.  Have a look, you might find yourself there.
 

I’ll post stories from many, though not all, of these hotels in the coming months.   You are cordially invited to drop in every Friday.  These musings are most often  made up of snippets from my life, bits and pieces of past experiences going in and out of hotels.
 
The Shangri-la, Paris

 
Gritti bar, Venice

Those early days were a time that are now reduced to floating impressions, not always making a lot of sense.  They may not even be entirely accurate, but they are all that are left of my memories. 
 

I recently read L.P. Hartley’s “The Go Between,” and its first sentence appeals to the almost-old man that I have now become:  “The past is a foreign country.  They do things differently there.” 
 
The George V Four Seasons, Paris

 
[Photos are mine, unless otherwise credited]