Hotel de Paris and the Grand Casino in Monte Carlo and frequented by James Bond and the actors who play him.
James Bond, Ian Fleming’s licensed-to-kill secret agent, returns to movie screens Nov. 9 in “Skyfall,” the 23rd film in the series. 007 has traveled the world, with the action this time spilling out in front of the actual MI6 headquarters (Her Majesty’s Secret Service) on the Thames in London, as well as in Scotland, Shanghai, and Istanbul. Over 50 years, “Bond, James Bond,” has outwitted villains in danger-laced locations like Lebanon, Afghanistan, Haiti, North Korea, Cuba, and Uganda, but the films weren’t actually shot there. There are, though, plenty of travel destinations where you can truly slink in the steps of actors Sean Connery, Roger Moore, Pierce Brosnan, and Daniel Craig, and feel like you, too, are playing 007. Here are some of my favorites:
-Casino de Monte-Carlo, Monaco: 1995’s “Goldeneye” featured the most glamorous location on the French Riviera, and 1983’s “Never Say Never Again” had Connery tangoing with Kim Basinger in the atrium. Former Bond Moore even calls Monte Carlo home, so play it up! Book the Garnier Suite at the adjacent Hotel de Paris, don a tuxedo, as I did, and settle in for a game of Chemin de Fer with a vodka martini at the 150-year-old, renovated palace. Visit www.monte-carloresort.com
-Fontainebleau Hotel, Miami Beach: A balcony at the historic, beachfront hotel on Collins Ave. allowed Connery’s Bond, in 1964, to spy Auric Goldfinger’s poolside Canasta cheating, which resulted in Goldfinger henchman Oddjob unforgettably suffocating Bond girl Jill Masterson by coating her in gold in her hotel suite. Visit www.fontainebleau.com. You can also match 007’s infamous golf match against Goldfinger at Stoke Poges Golf Club, near London’s Heathrow Airport. Visit www.StokePark.com
-Istanbul, Turkey’s tourist favorites the Grand Bazaar and Byzantine Hagia Sophia were spectacular settings in 1963’s “From Russia with Love,” and I stood at the very spot where Brosnan’s Bond leapt from Maiden’s Tower, a scenic icon in the middle of the Bosphorus River, in 1999’s “The World is Not Enough.” www.VisitIstanbul.org
-Paradise Island, near Nassau, in the Bahamas, was featured in 1965’s “Thunderball” and “Casino Royale,” in 2006, had Craig swimming offshore at the Ocean Club, where I sipped a “007 Martini” created by Brosnan himself while shooting another film at Atlantis Resort next door. Visit www.OceanClub.OneAndOnlyResorts.com
-Fleming, an actual British intelligence officer, dreamed up 007 and wrote his Bond books at “Goldeneye,” his dream villa in Jamaica, which is now a resort. Stay in the “Fleming Villa,” which contains the “007 Master Suite,” where you can use the original writing desk on which Bond’s story was penned before you pop down to Fleming’s private beach. Visit www.Goldeneye.com
Michigan-based travel writer Michael Patrick Shiels may be contacted at InviteYourself@aol.com or via www.TravelTattler.com
