'Bogie' Slept Here

Welcome to Hotel Britania. Humphrey Bogart slept here. …..so did we. Located on a quiet street just off Lisbon’s Avenida da Liberdade in the historic center of Lisbon, the small Boutique hotel boasts a pure Art Deco design, dates back to the 1940’s and was designed by the famous Portuguese modernist architect Cassiano Branco. Hotel Britania is the only hotel of that period to have survived intact and is classified as a historic building. Around the corner is luxury shopping, flea markets, coffee shops with lots of cafe lattes and a decidedly Parisian feel.

Portugal remained neutral during World War II and Lisbon had a pivotal role in that history. “It was the only European city in which both the Allies and the Axis power operated openly and was the temporary home to much of Europe’s exiled royalty, refugees seeking passage to the U.S., and a host of spies, secret police, captains of industry, bankers, prominent Jews, writers and artists, escaped POWs, and black marketeers. An operations officer writing in 1944 described the daily scene at Lisbon’s airport as being like the movie Casablanca, times twenty.” Neill Lochery, author of Lisbon: War in the Shadows of the City of Lights.