Trip Lit is Trending: Where To Stay and What To Read When You Get There

Hôtel Belle Rives, Juan-les-Pins, France

Belles Rives (meaning beautiful shores) is in an enviable position on the edge of the Cap d’Antibes peninsula, with mesmeric views of the coastline towards Golfe-Juan and the Lérins islands. Author F Scott Fitzgerald stayed here with his wife Zelda and daughter Scottie in a rented seaside house called Villa Saint-Louis before it was transformed into the Hôtel Belles Rives in 1929. Since then it’s been run by the Estène family; the current owner, Marianne Estène-Chauvin, has overseen a sensitive renovation which has remained true to the hotel’s Belle Époque roots. I love its stained glass windows, mosaic floors and frescos as well as colourful hand-blown glass from Biot (for any tablescaper a visit to the nearby factory to pick up some bubbled stemware is a must-do!).

Whether you stay in the hotel or not, if you’re visiting Antibes, do make time for an aperitif on its terrace overlooking the coastline, which Fitzgerald describes in both The Great Gatsby and Tender is the Night. You can still see a small blinking green lighthouse, just a hundred yards off, warning ships about the shallow rocky shore. The lighthouse may have been the model for the green light on the dock that many literary critics say symbolised Jay Gatsby’s longing for the elusive Daisy, and his goal of belonging to the moneyed set. “Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter – tomorrow we run faster, stretch out our arms farther …”

Every year, the Hôtel Belles Rives hosts the Prix Fitzgerald, which honours a novel or short story that reflects the spirit and art of living embodied by the American writer. This year’s nominees included Irish actor Gabriel Byrne, Manuel Vilas, Antoine Wilson, Joyce Carol Oates, Domenico Starnone and Quentin Tarantino. The latter won for his book Cinema Speculation, an entertaining cocktail of personal memoir, cultural criticism and Hollywood history; www.bellesrives.com.

University Arms, Cambridge, England

Alan Bennett narrating The Wind in the Willows in the loos is one of the many bookish pleasures of this boutique gem, designed by Martin Brudnizki (of Annabel’s, The Ivy Dublin and Doyle Collection’s Bloomsbury Hotel fame), which is sleek and scholarly. Guests can choose to stay in rooms named after literary legends including William Wordsworth, Virginia Woolf, John Milton, Alfred Tennyson, AA Milne and Lord Byron. Each suite’s library contains a selection of books by the namesake author or those that would have inspired them. For example, I stayed in the Isaac Newton suite, (overlooking Parker’s Piece park), which had a book on apple orchards. A recent addition to the hotel is its “book butlers”, who will discuss literary interests, preferred authors and themes over a cup of tea and then have a range of titles delivered to guests’ rooms. This service maximises the hotel’s extensive library, curated by Heywood Hill, the posh London bookshop.

Tempting as it is to read all day in such lovely surroundings, do go out and enjoy the sights. Punting can be fun, though a visit to Kettle’s Yard would be my top recommendation, especially booking a house tour of the beautiful former home of HS (Jim) Ede, a former curator of the Tate Gallery in London, and his wife Helen. Pared back in aesthetic, Ede’s collection of artworks, by Barbara Hepworth, David Jones, Ben and Winifred Nicholson among others, is positioned beside natural objects, ceramics and glassware.
As a former Cambridge alumna, I always love a walk over Clare Bridge, one of the prettiest in my opinion, and if you want to feel and look like a student the hotel will loan smart bicycles to circumnavigate the cobbled streets.

Then it’s back to the hotel library to enjoy the Historical Cambridge Afternoon Tea or dinner in Parker’s Tavern restaurant, where chef Tristan Welch serves up (spectacular) British comfort food. As for what to read: there are so many novels set in Cambridge – from Virginia Woolf’s Jacob’s Room to Laura Barnett’s The Version of Us to Clive James’ memoir May Week Was In June. I’m a huge fan of Kate Atkinson and recommend her literary detective novel Case Studies which unfolds in the town. As a further incentive to visit, the hotel is closely partnered with the Cambridge Literary Festival which celebrates its 25th anniversary this year, from November 16-19 – one of the guests is Irish novelist Anne Enright, who will be discussing her new novel The Wren, The Wren. www.universityarms.com

Grand Hotel du Lac, Vevey, Switzerland

I once spent a summer working in Vevey, a pretty town overlooking the shores of Lake Leman with the Savoy mountains behind. It has a glossy history – most famous perhaps as the home of actor Charlie Chaplin and also the headquarters of Nestlé. Writer Henry James loved the area and no doubt was familiar with the Grand Hotel du Lac, the definition of a grande dame, which was a favourite spot for royals in exile during the 19th and 20th centuries.

It is most famous as the setting of Anita Brookner’s Booker prize-winning novel, Hotel du Lac, whose central character Edith Hope writes romantic novels under a pseudonym. When her life begins to resemble the plot of her own novels, she flees to Switzerland and the quiet luxury of the Hotel du Lac where she meets an interesting cast of characters. It’s a novel about loneliness and second chances, very much in keeping with Jane Austen’s Persuasion. If Brookner described the hotel as “a dignified building, a house of repute, a traditional establishment, used to welcoming the prudent, the well-to-do, the retired, the self-effacing, the respected patrons of an earlier era,” the hotel in its present form is quite different. Revamped by decorator Pierre Yves-Rochon (his most famous project is Four Seasons George V in Paris), it’s posh and plush mixing classical and contemporary references. All 50 rooms offer style and serenity – an ideal place to put pen to paper with inspiring views over the French Alps or the lake.

A must-do when in the area is visit Montreux, home of the annual jazz festival, or explore the Chateau de Chillon, which inspired Lord Byron’s narrative poem The Prisoner of Chillon, described as a hymn to liberty. One way to combine both places (and channel Edith Hope) is to take a steamer boat from Vevey which takes in Lausanne and Montreux – it’s a relaxing and romantic way to enjoy this elegant corner of Switzerland, whatever the season. www.relaischateaux.com