Hotel with History | Copacabana Palace, Rio De Janeiro

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**SPEAKER_2** (0:53)
Hey babes, it's Paris Hilton. So I was checking my points balance in the Hilton Honors app the other day, and yeah, I've got about a billion, which feels excessive, even for me. Just kidding. You can never have too many Hilton Honors points. I want to do something iconic this summer, so I'm giving away all my Paris points. Just find somewhere you've always wanted to stay, then go to my socials or Hilton's and tell me about it. Just make sure you're a Hilton Honors member and I might be sending you Paris points, because when you want points that make your summer even hotter, it matters where you stay.

**Connor Boyle** (1:27)
Hello, I'm Head of Programming, Connor Boyle. Today we're whisking you away with a handpicked episode of Armchair Escapism. After a standout first season, Hotels with History is back. Produced by Intelligence Squared in partnership with Perowne International, this new season sees hosts Jules Perowne and Richard E. Grant travel further than ever to some of the world's most storied hotels. This season, you can stroll along white sand to the Copacabana Palace, watch the 1918 German Revolution unfold from the windows of Berlin's Hotel Adlon, and of course, enjoy Richard's inimitable impersonations of Marlene Dietrich. In each episode, Richard and Jules check in to a different hotel, uncovering the unforgettable moments that took place within its walls and beyond its grounds, exploring how the tides of history transformed entire regions into the luxury destinations we know today. Now over to Jules and Richard for Hotels with History.

**Richard E. Grant** (2:33)
There is a phrase, it comes from the Quechua people of the High Andes, a language spoken long before Portuguese sailors ever rounded the Cape, long before anyone thought to build anything on this particular curve of the South American coast. The phrase is Copacabana. It is said to mean the luminous place, the illuminated place, the place with a view. Somehow, that name traveled, down from the mountains, across the continent, through centuries of collision and conquest and reinvention.
Rio de Janeiro, the River of January, named by sailors who arrived in January 1502, mistook this vast glittering bay for the mouth of a river and sailed on, not knowing what they'd found. The phrase carries on to the quiet fringes of what will become one of the biggest metropolises in the world, Copacabana. And at the heart of it, where the city ends and the ocean begins, a hotel, one that has been standing since the birth of modern Brazil. Watching the waves come in and watching the city truly come into its own, this is the story of the Copacabana Palace.
Welcome to Hotels with History.

**Jules Perowne** (3:56)
I'm Jules Perowne.

**Richard E. Grant** (3:57)
And I'm Richard E. Grant. We've been brought together by a shared fascination with what makes a legendary hotel and by the stories embedded in their walls.

**Jules Perowne** (4:06)
Because if you want to truly understand a city, you should start with its hotels.

**Richard E. Grant** (4:11)
In every episode, we'll take you inside some of the world's most iconic and storied hotels.

**Jules Perowne** (4:16)
In today's episode, the hotel that has seen it all, from carnivals and parties to political machinations and coups.
I must say I was a little bit jealous to be sending you off to this hotel. I relish any time I get to spend on these particular stretches of beach.

**Richard E. Grant** (4:34)
And what a time I had. This hotel is a blinding, brilliant architectural meringue of a building. It sits there like a giant white cake left out on the sound. But it's not just a pretty face, oh no.
To understand this building is to understand the making of modern Brazil, warts and all.