One of the first significant hotel openings of 2014 took place in Istanbul, Turkey, this month, when the rather cumbersomely named Hilton Istanbul Bomonti Hotel & Conference Center was unveiled as the city's largest hotel. It is just a couple of kilometres north of its much older and more interesting sister property, the Hilton Istanbul, which opened back in 1955. This was Europe's first Hilton - the first to open outside the Americas in fact - and Istanbul's first modern architectural landmark. The delighted Turkish government even gave the hotel its own postal code and featured its likeness on postage stamps. It was also the first major hotel to be built from scratch in Europe after the second world war. Thoughtful design features included a porte-cochere in the shape of a flying carpet and a swimming pool supposedly laid out in the shape of the footprint of Conrad Hilton (above right, pictured with an architect's model of the hotel in the early 1950s), the founder of the hotel chain. Hilton Hotels' political and cultural footprint in post-war Europe, before and following the opening of the Istanbul property, is the subject of a book by Annabel Jane Wharton titled
Building the Cold War: Hilton International Hotels and Modern Architecture, available from Amazon.
Travellers heading to Turkey this year should note that anyone holding a British, United States or Australian passport, among others, will no longer be able to obtain a visa on arrival from April 10. Instead they will have to purchase one online at
www.evisa.gov.tr. Hong Kong SAR passport holders can enter the country without a visa.
The Shangri-La Hotel Tokyo (right) has just launched a "Tokyo on Two Wheels" package that offers guests the chance to explore the Japanese capital by bicycle, in the company of an English-speaking guide. Such tours are expected to be especially popular during the springtime cherry-blossom season and will take in some of the more spectacular park locations. Various tours run from 9am to 3pm and the hotel is offering a suitably accommodating late check-out time of 6pm. One-night package prices start from 68,000 yen (about HK$5,000) for two people, including breakfast, a picnic lunch and a T-shirt. For details go to
www.shangri-la.com/tokyo and click through Offers/Rooms & Suites Offers. Self-organised trips by the popular Tokyo Rent a Bike are, alas, no longer available, since the company closed down recently, but a long English-language list of cheaper bicycle rental places, with and without guides, can be found at
rentabike.jp.
Decade discounts Ten years ago next month, Australia's most famous train, The Ghan (top), first extended its reach beyond the Adelaide-to-Alice Springs run, right up to Darwin, and to mark the self-named "Ghanniversary", Great Southern Rail is offering 20 per cent discounts on some of its most popular rail packages. These vary in duration from five days to 14 days, taking in some of the country's finest scenery and most dramatic locations, including the Flinders Ranges, Kakadu National Park and Uluru (Ayers Rock). Bookings must be made before February 28 for travel from May 1 to October 31, and seats are limited. For further details, brochures and reservations, visit
www.greatsouthernrail.com.au.
An unusual open-jaw package to Cambodia is currently on offer from Swire Travel. The itinerary includes flights with Dragonair to Phnom Penh, then up to Siem Reap with new national carrier Cambodia Angkor Air, and back to Hong Kong with Dragonair. Hotel combinations include two nights each at the Phnom Penh Hotel and Angkor Century Resort & Spa (from HK$5,120), and the same at Raffles Hotel Le Royal (top) and Raffles Grand Hotel d'Angkor (from HK$8,460), with some mid-range options in between. Airport-to-hotel transfers and daily breakfast are included in these prices, which will be available for departures until the end of March (with a HK$900 surcharge during the Lunar New Year break). For more information and reservations, go to
www.swiretravel.com, or call 3151 8888.
