Palácio Estoril Hotel

In 1930 Fausto de Figueiredo, the businessman who was turning a stretch of coast 25 kilometres west of Lisbon into a resort on the model of the Riviera, opened the Palácio Hotel at the top of the casino gardens in Estoril. The Palácio Estoril Hotel still stands there, white and long, between the Casino Estoril and the railway that runs along the beach, with the Tamariz sands five minutes down the garden.

History

Figueiredo's Estoril was planned as a whole: casino, gardens, thermal baths, golf and a palace hotel, all reached by the electric railway from Lisbon. The hotel's moment came with the Second World War. Portugal stayed neutral, Lisbon became the exit from Europe, and Estoril filled with the people waiting to leave or sent to watch them. British and Allied diplomats and agents stayed at the Palácio, the Germans at the Hotel do Parque across the gardens, and both sides met at the casino tables. Ian Fleming, then a naval intelligence officer, passed through in 1941; the casino and the double agent Dusko Popov are part of the story of Casino Royale. After the war the exiled royal families of Europe settled along the coast: Umberto II of Italy, Carol II of Romania and Juan de Borbón, Count of Barcelona, whose son Juan Carlos grew up in Estoril. Several stayed at the Palácio before taking villas, and the hotel's bar keeps their photographs. In 1969 the crew of On Her Majesty's Secret Service used the hotel as a location and a base, and the Palácio appears on screen as the hotel where Bond meets Tracy.

Architecture and design

The hotel is a long white building of the late 1920s with a central block and two wings, set above terraced gardens that run down to the casino. Inside, the public rooms keep the scale of the period: a wide lobby, a bar hung with photographs of the royal guests, a ballroom and long corridors. The gardens hold the pool, with the sea beyond the railway line.

Rooms and suites

There are 161 rooms and suites, renovated in stages over the past two decades while keeping the proportions of the original building. The best face south over the gardens towards the casino and the sea; those on the upper floors of the wings have the widest view.

Dining

The Grill Four Seasons is the hotel's main restaurant, with a formal dining room and a terrace, and the bar serves through the day. A second restaurant serves by the pool in summer.

Wellness

The Estoril Wellness Center, beside the hotel, draws on the thermal water that Estoril's baths used before the resort was built, with an indoor pool, thermal circuit and a Banyan Tree spa, the brand's first in Europe when it opened. The hotel's own outdoor pool sits in the garden. Guests have playing rights at the Estoril Golf Club, laid out by Mackenzie Ross in the hills above the town.

Weddings and events

The Palácio hosts weddings in its ballroom and in the gardens above the casino, and its salons serve for conferences, with the Estoril Congress Centre a few hundred metres away for larger meetings. The hotel has been the base for the Estoril Open and for motor racing weekends at the nearby circuit.

Location

Estoril station, on the Cascais line, is five minutes on foot across the gardens, with trains to Cais do Sodré in Lisbon in about 35 minutes. Lisbon airport is about 40 minutes by car. Cascais is 10 minutes to the west and Sintra 25 minutes inland. Among the luxury hotels in Estoril and Cascais, the Palácio is the only one with the casino at the foot of its garden.