Anthea Gerrie reviews the 5 star Corinthia Hotel Budapest
Anyone who’s seen Wes Anderson’s multi-Oscar-winning Grand Budapest Hotel will recognise a few strangely familiar features of the real Budapest’s most famous five-star establishment. The film may have been set in non-specific Transylvanian countryside, but Anderson took as his inspiration this establishment in Hungary’s capital.
After paying a recce visit to what is now the Corinthia Hotel Budapest, Anderson recreated on set the rococo E-shaped facade, the tiered staircases and Moroccan-style arcaded spa. Not to mention the plethora of concierges attending the needs of guests and fantastical cakes baked on the premises.
Long before Wes sat sipping Champagne in the Presidential Suite, Jeremy Irons had slept in its bedrooms while filming The Borgias. Other famous guests include Helen Mirren, Gerard Depardieu and 1920’s jazz singer Josephine Baker, for whom a special cake was named. Opened in 1896 as the Grand Hotel Royal, the establishment wowed guests with a huge number of en suite bedrooms for the times as well as one of the world’s first cinemas.
It was here the Lumiere Brothers showed their first motion picture, which is as direct a link with the move industry as you can get.
Today, rooms at the renamed Corinthia Hotel Budapest vary between atmospheric rooms around an inner courtyard which suffer from low light and rooms on the front which are bright but lack the same period atmosphere.
A special package launched to celebrate the film’s Oscar wins includes two nights’ stay, transfers, an in-room viewing of the movie and a guided tour of the hotel, whose hidden treasures can be easily missed. They include a sumptuous ballroom, originally the 1000-seat cinema, and the unassuming-looking patisserie which serves better pastries than the famous New York Cafe down the road.
I want to stay at Corinthia Hotel Budapest, how much is it?
Click here for more information on ‘The Grand Budapest Hotel’ package: Rooms from £125; package £386 for two people including breakfast at Brasserie & Atrium, limousine airport transfers, special movie-night room amenities so you can watch the movie in your room, and a personally guided tour of this historic hotel.
