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Living Beyond Your Means at L'Hôtel in Paris, France
With a name like L'Hôtel (and the equally restrained Le Restaurant) you might expect a minimalist four-star reconceptualization of this fin-de-siecle beauty. Nothing could be further from the truth--a reincarnated Marie Antoinette would feel right at home in one of these deliciously decadent rooms where every last inch has been sumptuously upholstered, gilded, mirrored, or flanked with marble. The words "private underground pool" fail miserably at capturing the magic of the hotel's cave-like hammam, where you can float naked with your hotel-mate in a space that feels like a steamy Romanesque church. "And now, I am dying beyond my means," you might say--Oscar Wilde did as he lay between these very walls drawing his last breaths and racking up a bill that paled in comparison to the one you'll be picking up at check-out time. You can stay in his room, a shrine to the writer and British luxury. Those in the know and with some off-season flexibility watch L'Hotel's last-minute specials like hawks. Otherwise, you may have to save this one for your honeymoon, an all-out seduction, or your last hurrah.
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