The Westin Paris - Vendôme, at 3 rue de Castiglione on the corner of the rue de Rivoli, facing the Tuileries Garden

Tuileries Garden

The Tuileries Garden is a public garden located between the Louvre Museum and the Place de la Concorde in the 1st arrondissement of Paris. Created by Catherine de Medicis as the garden of the Tuileries Palace in 1564, it was first opened to the public in 1667, and became a public park after the...

 opened in April 1878 as the Hôtel Continental, It was designed by Charles Garnier

Charles Garnier (architect)

Charles Garnier was a French architect, perhaps best known as the architect of the Palais Garnier and the Opéra de Monte-Carlo.-Early life:...

's nephew Henri Blondel and was intended to be the most luxurious hotel in Paris at the time. It occupied a full block, the former premises of the Ministry of Finance, (burned in 1871

Paris Commune

The Paris Commune was a government that briefly ruled Paris from March 18 to May 28, 1871. It existed before the split between anarchists and Marxists had taken place, and it is hailed by both groups as the first assumption of power by the working class during the Industrial Revolution...

) which had been designed by François-Hippolyte Destailleur in 1817, following the Bourbon Restoration

Bourbon Restoration

The Bourbon Restoration is the name given to the period following the successive events of the French Revolution , the end of the First Republic , and then the forcible end of the First French Empire under Napoleon  – when a coalition of European powers restored by arms the monarchy to the...

. The Hôtel Continental remained the largest hotel in Paris for decades; the Russian Grand Dukes habitually stayed there; at the Liberation of Paris

Liberation of Paris

The Liberation of Paris took place during World War II from 19 August 1944 until the surrender of the occupying German garrison on August 25th. It could be regarded by some as the last battle in the Battle for Normandy, though that really ended with the crushing of the Wehrmacht forces between the...

, bedsheets were hung from its windows as cheerful flags of surrender. The hotel was renamed the Inter-Continental Paris in the 1980s, and then became The Westin Paris in 2005, adding the suffix Vendôme to its name in 2010.

External links

• The Westin Paris - Vendôme Official Website
• The Westin Paris - Vendôme Official Chain Website