Grand Hotel Wien

Overview

The Grand Hotel Wien is located right in the heart of the city only a stroll away from all major sights including the opera house, St. Stephan's Cathedral, the pedestrian zone and main shopping area. Originally built in 1870, the hotel offers Viennese flair combined with the latest state-of-the-art technology. Its 205 rooms and suites are decorated in very traditional style, and offer all the comforts a guest can expect from a luxury hotel.

Dining In

With four restaurants and two bars the Grand Hotel Wien can meet nearly everyone's tastes. Le Ciel, an elegant gourmet restaurant, awarded two toques by Gault Millau, serves international and French cuisine. Open for lunch and dinner, it is located on the 7th floor with a marvelous view over the city and offers live piano music in the evening. Unkai, a Japanese restaurant also on the 7th floor, with teppanyaki tables, private rooms, tatami rooms and an à la carte restaurant. With its Japanese kitchen and staff, it provides the finest in authentic cuisine and service, and has been awarded two toque by Gault Millau. The Grand Café is open all day, serving an extended buffet breakfast with local champagne, and Japanese-style breakfast, as well as lunch and dinner. Kavalierbar is a traditional cocktail bar overlooking the main boulevard, serving 35 different brands of port. Rosengarten, in the lobby, for cocktails, coffee, snacks and pastry all day.

Recreation and Health

A fully equipped fitness center is available free of charge for hotel guests 24 hours a day.

Features

The hotel also offers 13 conference and banqueting rooms, including a beautiful 535-square-meter ballroom with crystal chandeliers, 6-meter-high ceiling, 3 translation booths and a modern light and sound system.

Hotel Okura Amsterdam

Overview

Amsterdam is a city like Venice founded on and still today focused around water and waterways. However, unlike Venice, Holland's largest city is no mere museum piece. Amsterdam is a real, living and breathing metropolis.

In the canals, young Internet entrepreneurs strike deals across Europe from their houseboats and just outside the old core is the RAI, one of the continent's key conference and business hubs. As well as the chugging canal boats, the city's waterways also increasingly play home to massive cruise ships and cargo vessels from all over the world. Today, Amsterdam peddles tourists almost as slickly as it has peddled goods and services over the centuries.

The Dutch capital has clearly come a long way since it was founded, as legend has it, by two fishermen and a seasick dog. The story goes that the dog jumped ship to deposit the contents of his stomach and the two fishermen became the founders of Amsterdam. The reality might have been slightly more prosaic, with the River Amstel being dammed in the 13th century and spawning a settlement, which took the name of Aemstelledamme.

The lifeblood of Amsterdam has long been its aquatic locale, close as it is to the North Sea and built on myriad canals, which neatly divide the city into easily navigable districts and imbue it with a small town ambience. There seems to be a canal around every corner in Amsterdam - not too surprising, considering that the city is home to a staggering 165 of them (more than Venice).

Amsterdam is a haven for many nationalities, various sexualities and people of radically different political and religious persuasions, but laws have tightened in recent years as some of the city's eclectic communities have become more and more divided. There is still tolerance when it comes to man's vices, with practical solutions on how to deal with one of the world's oldest industries and the controlled use of soft drugs.

During the summer, the city comes together in Vondelpark, where locals and tourists alike relax in the balmy weather. Amsterdam statistically might be one of Europe's wettest capitals, but as soon as the clouds clear and the sun is allowed to shine, its inhabitants spill out onto the streets to sit in the numerous pavement cafés, take a cruise on a canal or even to partake in that most ubiquitous of Amsterdam pastimes, riding bicycles (the city has more than double the number of bikes as it has people).

Amsterdam's winters tend to be cold with plenty of rain but this seldom seems to deter the tourists, who flock to the city. Particularly cold winters also offer the unique chance for visitors to witness Amsterdammers skating across the picturesquely frozen canals.

Grand Hotel Park

Overview

Set amidst a beautifully manicured park high above Gstaad, the Grand Hotel Park, within a 5-minute walk to the center of the village, offers a unique view of the majestic Bernese Alps. Recently renovated, this grand chalet-style property is located in a typical small village with a popular ski area just walking distance from the hotel. The hotel offers an elegant and casual ambience, providing charm, intimacy and refined services.

Dining In

5 restaurants & bars with unique atmosphere, french gastronomy, refined service, piano in evening: Le Grand Restaurant, Le Marco Polo, Le Greenhouse, and Le Bar.

Recreation and Health

Guerlain-Spa Chakra: Saltwater Pool, Beauty Center, Massage, Steam Bath, Fitness center, Tennis, Golf, Skiing, Indoor and outdoor swimming pools, and Private cinema.

Features

88 rooms and 11 suites. Peaceful surrounding on a sunny hill, impressive view over mountains, elegant ambiance, highest comfort. 5 meeting and conference rooms. A banquet capacity of 160PAX.

Taj Lands End

Overview

Mumbai is a city of extreme contrasts, of prosperity and poverty, yet it boasts the finest collection of Victorian buildings anywhere in Asia and a myriad of temples and mosques.

While the city is densely populated, and traffic can be daunting, Mumbai has much to offer. It is a colorful, vibrant, energetic and friendly city, with a varied and fascinating history and many reasons to face the future with confidence.

Once Bombay (the city was renamed after the Hindu goddess Mumbadevi in 1995, although both names are still widely used), Mumbai juts out southwest from the Indian subcontinent into the Arabian Sea. It has a hot, humid climate, which is only partly relieved by the annual arrival of the monsoon, between June and September. Originally, Mumbai was a group of seven separate islands. Gradually the islands merged into a single peninsula as land was reclaimed from the sea, although some of the former islands still lend their names to parts of the modern city - Colaba, for example.

Until the arrival of the Portuguese in 1509 the islands were home to the Koli fishermen and to a community of Buddhist monks. The Portuguese established a trading base and dominated the region for more than a century. In 1661, the Portuguese colony passed to Britain, and from then until 1858, Bombay was governed by the East India Company, whose raison d'être was trade and profit.

In 1858, following the suppression of the Indian Mutiny, control of British India passed from the East India Company to the Crown, where it remained until independence in August 1947. It was during this 90-year phase that the modern city took shape. The demolition of the old Bombay fort, in the 1860s, was the precursor to the redevelopment of the British city, or what is now the center of the city - the area referred to as ‘Fort'. Similarly, the extensive 1920s and 30s land reclamation along Back Bay provided the space for the development of the Marine Drive area of the city, now one of the most important parts of Mumbai.

From its earliest days, Mumbai was a trading place and today is the financial center of India, home to the country's largest stock exchange and the heart of its banking industry. It is an important center of the gem trade and its film industry (Bollywood) is a national institution. For many visitors, the city is only a point of arrival, a springboard for the south or the architectural glories of the north. But to pass through Mumbai without tarrying a while is to miss one of the world's great cities, as worthwhile and idiosyncratic as any on earth.

The Taj Mahal Hotel, New Delhi

Overview

Delhi is a daunting city, especially for the first-time visitor. It sprawls over a vast tract of the Jamuna plain, it is densely populated and undeniably, travelers will see poverty and pollution.
However, those who look beyond the seeming chaos will discover delights at every turn (historical, architectural, artistic and culinary) quite apart from the vivid color, subcontinental eccentricity and restless vibrancy that give Delhi its multi-faceted spirit.

As well as being a starting-point for visiting Agra, the home of the Taj Mahal, or the cities and forts of Rajasthan, Delhi itself has much to offer. The architectural legacy of the Islamic conquerors is rich and varied, the colonial center is imposingly impressive; there are some brilliant museums and the city's bazaars and shops offer an astonishing array of goods, from spices and silks to car spare parts. The city's impressive restaurants tempt the visitor with a wide variety of delicious food, ranging from traditional Indian curries to global offerings that include Mediterranean, Italian, Japanese and Thai.

Delhi has been the capital of India since independence in 1947, but even before that, the British moved their capital here from Calcutta (now Kolkata) in 1911. For much of its history, Delhi was the center of power of the various Muslim dynasties that ruled swathes of the subcontinent from the 12th century.

Modern Delhi is really two cities: Old Delhi, packed into a tangle of narrow, crowded streets beneath the Red Fort's imposing walls, and New Delhi, which is its polar opposite, complete with the grandiose imperial citadel, broad, leafy boulevards and well-spaced bungalows, as laid out by Lutyens and Baker in the 1920s.

Old Delhi, built by Emperor Shah Jahan in the 17th century, is only the latest of eight known cities that have existed in this location since the Muslims first arrived. Around New Delhi, particularly in the area known as Transjamuna, across the river from the Old City, are the suburbs that have sprung up to accommodate a population that has increased, more by migration than by natural increment.

Despite its long history, Delhi as a capital city is in fact very young. At partition in 1947, Delhi was radically and permanently changed, more or less overnight. With the creation of a predominately Hindu India and a Muslim Pakistan, there was a mass migration of peoples in both directions and sectarian bloodletting on a horrifying scale. Having been largely Muslim, before 1947, at partition Delhi became a Hindu and Sikh majority city. At the same time, the population virtually doubled, despite the mass exodus of Muslims.

The best time to visit is November to March. Summer in Delhi is quite hot, beginning from