Pera Palace Hotel

The Pera Palas was built by Georges Nagelmackers, the Belgian entrepreneur who founded the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits et Grands Express Européens in 1868. Nagelmackers, who had succeeded in linking Paris and Constantinople by luxury train with his famed Orient Express, found that once he had transported his esteemed passengers to the Ottoman imperial capital there was no suitable place for them to stay. What was Nagelmackers to do? Why, build a new luxury hotel of course! The hotel opened in 1892 and advertised itself as having ‘a thoroughly healthy situation, being high up and isolated on all four sides’, and ‘overlooking the Golden Horn and the whole panorama of Stamboul’. Its guests included Agatha Christie, who supposedly wrote Murder on the Orient Express in Room 411; Mata Hari, who no doubt frequented the elegant bar with its lovely stained-glass windows and excellent eavesdropping opportunities; and Greta Garbo, who probably enjoyed her own company in one of the spacious suites. As this book went to print the hotel was undergoing a total renovation and was scheduled to reopen in early 2010. Some consternation was being aired around town as to how sympathetic the renovation will be to the building’s rich cultural and architectural history.