If you visited most of the great cities of the world, and could stay anywhere you wanted, chances are you'd choose their grand old hotels. For example, in New York, that could be The Waldorf or The Plaza. These are the hotels that set the standard for gracious living. (They didn't coin the phrase "Putting on the Ritz" because of the crackers.) These are the hotels we see in the movies, and where movie stars stay; and world leaders, and royalty. The walls drip with history. You can sit in the same bars as Hemingway, Churchill, and Wilde did, drinking now common cocktails invented in that very bar. They are often tourist attractions on their own merit. Oddly enough, Canada has a disproportionate number of these classic hotels, the byproduct of its cities coming of age coinciding with the golden age of rail travel; hence their being colloquially referred to as "railway hotels", as they were originally built, owned, and operated by the major railroad companies. How many do you recognize?
