We are huge fans

of offbeat film director Wes Anderson, so when we saw his hilarious  Grand Budapest Hotel, we remembered our own grand hotel in the Hungarian capital.

In devising his cinematic confection, Anderson was inspired by a visit to the Danubius Gellert Hotel and Spa in Budapest and also the works of absurdist Austrian writer Stefan Zweig. In the end, the film was shot in Görlitz in Saxony, Germany, in an alpine landscape quite unrelated to Budapest.

In an interview at the time of the film’s release, Anderson pointed out that many great European hotels are named for other cities, such as the Hotel de Paris in Monte Carlo, the Londres in Paris and the New York Café in Budapest.  So we forgive him for getting us excited about the possibility of a film about Budapest, one of our favourite cities.

Anderson creates a minutely detailed world of his own, as fans of his other pictures, The Royal Tenenbaums, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou and the enchanting Moonrise Kingdom will attest. This story, about an effete concierge (Ralph Fiennes) and a lobby boy (Zero Moustafa) who become embroiled in the murder of an ancient patroness (Tilda Swinton), also stars Anderson’s regular cast of nimble actors, including Bill Murray, Jason Schwartzman, Owen Wilson and Edward Norton and some madcap cameos from Adrien Brody, Jude Law and Willem Dafoe. It features meticulously created nostalgia, ludicrous chases, secret codes, precocious children and silly policemen – plus some luridly opulent hotel interiors that could only be the fruit of Anderson’s imagination. Would someone please open that hotel?

We haven’t stayed at Budapest’s Gellert, an historic but rather seedy hotel and baths, although I did once have a massage there. (Visit our feature on Budapest for details.) Our personal favourite Grand Budapest Hotel is the Four Seasons Gresham Palace, an Art Nouveau/Secessionist gem that lay derelict for decades before undergoing an exacting five-year  $110 million renovation utilising the best wrought-iron specialists, silversmiths, stained-glass makers, ceramists, mosaicists and other craftspeople in Hungary.

The hotel features a two million-piece mosaic tile floor, a grand staircase lit by stained glass windows, a magnificent glass atrium over the lobby, a beautiful wrought iron elevator (it was the first elevator in the country) and the building’s original iron peacock-design gates.  In the process of reconstruction, the hotel was also completely modernized, adding amenities like an indoor lap pool, spa  fitness facilities and all the latest technology. It’s brilliantly situated on the Danube, walking distance from many of the city’s wonderful cafes.

The rooms are decorated in elegant Secessionist style so, if you’re fond of this era, then be sure to put the hotel on your bucket list.   We stayed in room 331, which had a view of Budapest’s famous Chain suspension bridge from its curved balcony. Lobby sitting in the exquisite foyer is a pleasure in itself.

Difficult to imagine that it was a car parking building during the Communist era.

Four Seasons Gresham Palace, Széchenyi István tér 5-6., 1051 Budapest, Hungary, tel: 36 (1) 268-6000

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