Because why not choose your next getaway so that life can be just like it is in the movies?!
1. James Bond & Octopussy’s Indian Island Palace
Bond swam up to the floating palace disguised as a crocodile, but the Taj Lake Hotel conveniently welcomes its guests by boat in real life. The dreamy hotel located in India’s Lake Picchola, Udaipur, played a starring role as Octopussy’s lair, populated only by attractive women.
The Lake Palace was completed in 1746 as a royal winter palace, and during the famous Indian Mutiny in the 19th century, several European families used the palace as an asylum. To protect his guests, the Rana destroyed all the town’s boats so that the rebels could not reach the island.
In the late 19th century, the palace’s Eastern splendor began to deteriorate and it was later described in the 1950s as “totally deserted, the stillness broken only by the humming of clouds of mosquitoes”. In the 1960s, it was turned into a luxury hotel and today boasts 83 marble rooms and suites, and was recently voted as the most romantic hotel in India and in the world.
Discover the Taj Lake Hotel
2. Baby’s Dirty Dancing Summer Resort
The famous “Kellerman’s Hotel” from Dirty Dancing, set in the Catskills, NY, is indeed a real hotel, except it’s actually in Virginia. The Mountain Lake Resort in Pembroke,
You can even spend a “Dirty Dancing Weekend” at Mountain Lake Resort filled with a film location tour, dance lessons, a trivia contest and even Dirty Dancing each evening, ha!
Blogger “Wrinkled Chiffon” stayed there and took the Dirty Dancing tour thanks to a map provided by the receptionist with all the filming locations at the resort, including Johnny’s cabin ↑
The gazebo by the lake where Baby took a dance class with Penny, where a stone has been dedicated to the late Patrick Swayze.
The boardwalk leading out to the lake where Baby and Johnny practiced “the lift”, as well as the rather empty lake…
Recognise this dining room where Baby and her family ate at Kellerman’s?
Book your Dirty Dancing weekend at the Mountain Lake Lodge.
3. The Hotels that Inspired Wes Anderson
You might not be able to check into Anderson’s Grand Budapest Hotel, but you can book a room at the establishments that inspired him: the rather charmingly named, Grand Hotel Pupp or the Hotel Imperial.
For the miniature set Anderson built to play his fictional hotel, he studied the architecture the Grandhotel Pupp in Karlovy Vary, a picturesque spa town situated in western Bohemia, Czech Republic. The Grandhotel Pupp was also used as a location in Bond’s Casino Royale.
In the same spa town, is Hotel Imperial, which has an observatory tower very similar to the one featured in Anderson’s film. And remember the majestic deer that overlooks the hotel in Anderson’s already iconic film poster…?
Check in at the Grand Hotel Pupp or the Hotel Imperial.
4. An Overnight Interview with the Vampire
If you can get past its dark history, Louisiana’s Oak Alley Plantation, which starred as the stately home of Louis (played by Brad Pitt) offers guests to spend the night in one of the century old cottages on the grounds. This article’s title of “acting out your favourite movie” perhaps does not work so well here seeing as in the movie, Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise spend a few years feeding off of slaves here until Louis decides to burn the whole place to the ground. Oak Alley “offers the enchantment of one way of life without compromising the significance of another… a testimonial to a bygone era
Discover Louisiana’s Oak Alley.
5. The Italian Romance of Only You
Only You is one of my all-time favourite romantic comedies, starring Robert Downey Junior and Marisa Tomei, where the cast head off to Positano on the Amalfi Coast and check into Le Sirenseuse, an 18th century palazzo turned hotel.
Even the hotel’s reception manager, Mr. Domenico Pane, played himself! Who can forget Billy Zane in that hotel pool scene?!
Find the hotel here.
6. Greetings from the Overlook Hotel
Stanley Kubrick’s now cult horror film, The Shining, borrowed the facade of the Timberline Lodge on Mount Hood, Oregon and became the exterior of the Overlook Hotel for the duration of the movie.
Again, perhaps not a good idea to go “acting out” any scenes from the movie…
And in case you’re wondering, the Timberline Lodge on Mount Hood is not haunted, in fact it’s a popular, cozy and perhaps borderline hipster ski resort in Oregon!
7. Where Stella Got Her Groove Back
Want whatever Angela Bassett was having in the 90s ‘girls-night-in’ cult classic, How Stella Got Her Groove Back ?
Check into the Round Hill Hotel & Villas in Jamaica, built as a colony of cottages for the rich, famous and glamorous of the 1950s such as Jackie O, complete with Ralph Lauren-designed suites. Villa 11 was the setting for the movie starring Angela Bassett, Taye Diggs and Whoopie Goldberg.
Get your groove back at Montego Bay here.
8. A Vicky Cristina Barcelona Lovers’ Nest
Taking an exotic break from his usual New York City settings, Woody Allen chose the Hotel de la Reconquista in Oviedo, Spain as part of his setting for his 2008 film Vicky Cristina Barcelona. You can also use this site to help you find all the romantic locations used in the film as the cozy couple of three went sightseeing around Oveiro and various other charming towns in Spain.
The Hotel de la Reconquista, Oviedo, is here.
9. A Typically Bridget Jones Getaway
In the summer of 2001, Stoke Park’s Grade I listed building and breath-taking 300 acre grounds took to the scenes with a starring role in Bridget Jones’s Diary. Daniel Cleaver (the dastardly Hugh Grant) takes the windswept Bridget Jones (Renée Zellweger) away for a luxury romantic mini break. After a hilarious afternoon’s rowing, filmed on the Club’s glistening lake, the couple retire to the Club’s grand Pennsylvania Suite with its oak timbered four poster bed.
Stoke Park has starred in several movies in fact, including three James Bond films and two of Guy Ritchie’s, Layer Cake and RocknRolla.
Get a night at Stoke Park in your diary.
10. The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel actually exists
We return to India again for our last hotel, the real-life location of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. I just loved this heart-warming movie that gave me a serious case of the travel bug. Those open-air terraces and the shabby remnants of colonial India; I was so intrigued to discover that the location for the film and its sequel were set in a real establishment called the Ravia Khempur, an equestrian hotel in Mewar…
The crumbling hotel used in hit film The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel has been swamped with bookings since its release in 2012. It’s now working on redesigning its website and brochure – and rewriting its restaurant menu to resemble the one in the film.
Retire for an Indian Summer at the Ravla Khempur hotel.
