{"id":2089,"date":"2025-09-09T16:55:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-09T16:55:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thebesttimetovisit.com\/magazine\/?p=2089"},"modified":"2025-09-09T16:55:11","modified_gmt":"2025-09-09T16:55:11","slug":"sleep-behind-bars-europes-most-intriguing-prison-hotels-will-lock-you-up-in-luxury","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thebesttimetovisit.com\/magazine\/sleep-behind-bars-europes-most-intriguing-prison-hotels-will-lock-you-up-in-luxury\/","title":{"rendered":"Sleep Behind Bars: Europe&#8217;s Most Intriguing Prison Hotels Will Lock You Up in Luxury"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Among the unique accommodations to try while traveling, we recently told you about the possibility of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thebesttimetovisit.com\/magazine\/forget-glamping-this-belgian-site-lets-you-sleep-like-napoleons-army-did-in-1815\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">sleeping on the Waterloo battlefield<\/a>. Even more original is the idea &#8211; why not, after all &#8211; of spending the night in what was once a prison, with several addresses across Europe offering this unusual experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>From the Netherlands to Slovenia via Switzerland, here&#8217;s a European tour of some fascinating prison hotels:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Hotel Liberty Offenburg<\/strong>: Located in Offenburg, Germany. This former women&#8217;s prison in a mid-19th century brick building has been transformed into a luxury hotel with 38 rooms.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Het Arresthuis<\/strong>: In Roermond, Netherlands. This is also a former 19th-century prison that has been converted into a rather upscale establishment.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Malmaison Oxford<\/strong>: In Oxford, United Kingdom. Located within the historic grounds of Oxford Castle, this former Victorian prison offers cells converted into elegant and comfortable rooms.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Hostel Celica<\/strong>: In Ljubljana, Slovenia. This youth hostel ranks among the most original in the world. It&#8217;s housed in a former military prison from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, where the cells (<em>&#8220;celica&#8221;<\/em> in Slovenian) &#8211; complete with original doors and window bars &#8211; have been decorated by Slovenian and international artists since its opening in 2003.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Langholmen Hostel<\/strong>: In Stockholm, Sweden. Located on an island in the Stockholm archipelago, this establishment is also a youth hostel installed in a former prison building that operated from 1840 to 1975.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Barabas Luzern<\/strong>: In Lucerne, Switzerland. This is the city&#8217;s former prison, transformed since 2018 into a hotel with modernized cell-rooms and even one converted into a suite in honor of a prisoner-artist called Barabas who left his wall paintings there and gave his name to the establishment.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Four Seasons Sultanahmet<\/strong>: In Istanbul, Turkey. Here&#8217;s a luxury hotel located in the heart of the historic Sultanahmet district in what was a prison until 1998. The complex is built around a courtyard that was once the prisoners&#8217; yard and is now a beautiful garden.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Aux Prisons<\/strong>: Located in Montagny, near Lyon, France. This hotel-restaurant offers an unusual stay in a former prison transformed to provide all modern comforts, while retaining original doors from former prisons for a more &#8220;realistic&#8221; immersion.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>H\u00f4tel La Prison<\/strong>: But it&#8217;s in B\u00e9ziers, France, where the experience remains most compelling. Now a well-known destination, this former B\u00e9ziers detention center was transformed into a hotel and opened its doors in 2023. You&#8217;ll now find 50 comfortable rooms fitted into former cells, a restaurant with panoramic views, and a swimming lane, all combined with certain elements from the site&#8217;s prison past such as high walls, walkways, and some graffiti from former inmates.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Among the unique accommodations to try while traveling, we recently told you about the possibility of sleeping on the Waterloo battlefield. Even more original is the idea &#8211; why not, after all &#8211; of spending the night in what was once a prison, with several addresses across Europe offering this unusual experience. From the Netherlands to Slovenia via Switzerland, here&#8217;s a European tour of some fascinating prison hotels:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2090,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_strive_editorial_status":"complete","_strive_copy_of":0,"_strive_checklists":"\"\"","_strive_active_checklist":"","_strive_post_notes":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[10,224,246,17,230],"class_list":["post-2089","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-europe","tag-france","tag-germany","tag-netherlands","tag-switzerland","tag-united-kingdom","no-featured-image-padding"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thebesttimetovisit.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2089","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thebesttimetovisit.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thebesttimetovisit.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebesttimetovisit.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebesttimetovisit.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2089"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebesttimetovisit.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2089\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2092,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebesttimetovisit.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2089\/revisions\/2092"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebesttimetovisit.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2090"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thebesttimetovisit.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2089"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebesttimetovisit.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2089"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebesttimetovisit.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2089"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}