These hotels all share one thing in common. Can you figure out what it is?
Below you’ll find what seems to be a random collection of hotels — but actually, they all have one uncommon thing in common. We could tell you what it is, but we thought it’d be more fun if you tried to guess down in the comments. Whoever is first to guess correctly will win a $300 credit to use on Tablet.
Hint: the answer is not something obvious that all hotels share, like having beds or a roof, but it is something specific you can figure out without having to leave Tablet.
Taj Falaknuma Palace
Hyderabad, India
The Taj hotel group has impeccable taste in palaces; this one, with its English architecture, French tapestries and Venetian chandeliers, still belongs to what remains of Hyderabad’s royal family, and is among India’s most opulent residences.
Chateau Mcely
Mcely, Czech Republic
The Central Bohemian countryside may not evoke the same absinthe-soaked visions as Prague’s storied streets, but places like the St. George Forest — home to Chateau Mcely, the modern five-star incarnation of a 17th-century hunting lodge — have a magic all their own.
Il Salviatino
Florence, Italy
It’s not all Renaissance splendor, though that’s a part of it — Il Salviatino’s influences are drawn from every era of its existence, including frescoes from the nineteenth century and furnishings from the early twentieth, as well as some well-chosen contemporary design pieces.
The Iron Horse Hotel
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Get on your bikes and ride: this handsome hotel explicitly engages the motorcycling demographic, which makes sense since it’s just across the street from Milwaukee’s Harley-Davidson museum — but this post-industrial beauty is full of details that go beyond theme-hotel kitsch.
Old Parsonage Hotel
Oxford, England
The Old Parsonage is unique in billing itself as a 17th-century boutique hotel, and they’ve got a point. This is a town whose university is so old as to resist any attempt at pinning down a precise date for its founding — in comparison it was practically just yesterday that Oscar Wilde signed the hotel’s guest book.
As Janelas Verdes
Lisbon, Portugal
Janelas Verdes is an eighteenth-century mansion; once the home of the Portuguese novelist Eça de Queirós, today it’s a small and elegant boutique hotel, with many of the trappings of an old-fashioned literary residence — wood-paneled walls, ornate armchairs, musty old books, maps and antique objets d’art at every turn.
The White Elephant
Nantucket, Massachusetts
The White Elephant is more or less everything you’d want from a Nantucket hotel — classic style, sunny nautical interiors, close-up sea views — and a few things you might not have counted on, including a full-service spa looking out over the Nantucket Harbor.
Hudson Hotel
New York City, New York
The Hudson is legendary for the coziness of its ship’s-cabin rooms, but like all the famous Schraeger-Starck collaborations, the real action is in its Alice-style wonderland of social spaces, including a 15th-floor terrace, a bar styled after an old English drawing room, and, of course, an indoor park.
Rooms Hotel
Tbilisi, Georgia
This sleek eight-story hotel, located inside an old publishing house, embodies many of the qualities that make Tbilisi so appealing — elegant architecture, rich traditions in literature and the fine arts, a bohemian spirit, an emphasis on social life.
So, what do you think?
The first person in the comments below to correctly guess what these hotels have in common will win a $300 credit to use on Tablet (runners-up will also win a prize). Feel free to provide as many answers as you want — there may be multiple responses that are technically true, but we’re looking for one unique quality in particular.
Update: And the winner is….