There are even in the cellar. And also among the bottles of the bar, in the kitchen, on the shelves above the beds, in the bathrooms, especially in the bathrooms.
And then along the stairs, to the walls of the rooms, to the entrance, practically everywhere: these are books, over 50 thousand, and constitute the unexpected heritage of the Literary Man Hotel in Obidos, a hundred kilometers north of Lisbon.
More than heritage, even if it is indeed of real heritage, it is the distinctive character: the idea was concretized in 2015 by entrepreneurs in search of something specific and unique, but also fascinated by the idea that a visitor could find to welcome him all the warmth that only a good pile of books can create.
It was just a matter of waiting for the right occasion, the sale of an old convent, and its renovation, and the game was made.
The books were recovered almost everywhere so that anyone who arrived could find texts written in his mother tongue, but for some years now the habit among the customers, especially the fixed ones, has been spreading to bring new volumes in order to increase the priceless heritage of the richest library-hotel in the world, to the point that the management hopes to reach 100 thousand within a very short time.
Meanwhile, the guests read, but not only: the rooms, inside which the books are distributed almost everywhere, have been furnished by leading interior architects.
In addition, specific programs are available which, as it happens, combine the usual activities of reading such as the “bibliotherapy” or the “nature of the book” program: in the first case one is welcomed in the basement of the hotel, among hundreds of wine bottles for decades waiting for someone to open them and, between one book and another, enjoy a relaxing massage; in the second, instead, he takes a vintage bicycle and rides to the sea, where a literary dinner is scheduled during which actors hired by the hotel read significant passages from some of the books housed inside the hotel.
Of course, in certain circumstances reading is more an excuse than an actual proposal to the advantage of the spiritual enrichment of the guest, however the more discerning can really devote some time to relax by flipping through the pages of their favorite author or sipping a glass of good Porto and be carried away on the wings of the imagination of one of the thousand and thousand volumes that not only decorate but qualify the hotel.
There are novels, poems, fantasy books, thrillers, horror, nothing is missing, neither in the thirty rooms with literary subjects of the structure nor in the common areas: the variety of the offer also allows those who normally do not love literature to experience the thrill of working with imagination following the adventures of some of the many characters hidden in those pages.
And what can we say about The Literary Gin Bar, where cocktails are served based on the preferences shown in life by the greatest of literature such as Jack Kerouac (Margarita) or Francis Scott Fitzgerald (Gin Rickey) or Ernest Hemingway (Mojito)?
Everything at the Literary Man Hotel has the scent of paper, the one that the diehards of the book are not willing to give up, even when they go on vacation.
