Raffles Hotel

Founded in 1887 by the Armenian Sarkies brothers and named for Singapore’s British founder, Sir Stamford Raffles, this grand colonial matriarch preserves the twilight of nineteenth-century imperial grandeur. Architect Regent Alfred John Bidwell designed the current main building in 1899, establishing its iconic Neo-Renaissance facade defined by gleaming white colonnades, ornate cast-iron porticos, and sprawling timber verandahs. Within the palm-fringed courtyards, visitors step off modern asphalt into a sunlit sanctuary of polished teak floors, soaring classical archways, and a three-story grand lobby where literary luminaries like Rudyard Kipling, Joseph Conrad, and Somerset Maugham once sought refuge and penned stories. Moving through the airy breezeways, the perfume of tropical frangipani mingles with the faint scent of aged beeswax and timber. Ascending to the two-story Long Bar, visitors encounter one of the city's most eccentric indulgences: the rhythmic crunch of discarded peanut shells underfoot, an unyielding tradition untouched by modern local litter laws. Here, beneath punkah-inspired ceiling fans lazily swaying overhead, bartenders craft the gin-and-cherry Singapore Sling, originally formulated within these walls around 1915 by Hainanese bartender Ngiam Tong Boon. Standing amidst the rustling traveler’s palms and gleaming balustrades, one feels the intoxicating rhythm of an equatorial time capsule insulated from the futuristic steel metropolis just beyond the perimeter gates.