Hotel Bristol Warsaw

The great Polish pianist and future prime minister Ignacy Jan Paderewski played at the opening in 1901, which rather set the tone. The Bristol survived the Warsaw Uprising of 1944 when most of the city was razed to the ground — one of only a handful of prewar buildings on the Royal Route to emerge intact. This accident of survival gives the hotel a weight of history that is felt differently here than at any other European grand hotel: it represents continuity in a city that lost almost everything. 206 rooms, a Luxury Collection property.