Cathay Hotel (also known as the Sassoon House)　华懋饭店（沙逊大厦）

(A National Architectural Heritage)

This was the Sassoon House in old Shanghai. The Gothic architecture, built in 1928, is still elegant and luxurious even today in the array of buildings at the Bund.

The house is in A-shape, with 10 stories, but in some part, 13 stories. Going along the external granite walls and entering the revolving door, you will see the milky white Italian marble floor, and the bronze pendant lamps on the ceiling, which contrast nicely with each other. On the first floor, there is an array of showcases, shops, reception rooms, lounges, banks and a post office as well. From the second to the fourth floors are offices, and from the fifth to the eighth floors are hotel suites and rooms, which were called Cathay Hotel. In the hotel, there are suites of different architectural styles from nine countries, including Germany, Britain, Spain, the United States, Italy, Japan, and India. Each suite is uniquely decorated and furnished with the furniture and vessels from the respective country. What's more, each room can tell stories about adventurers from different countries in Shanghai. On top of the building by the Huangpu River, there is an eye-catching 19-meter pyramid.

After 1949, Cathay Hotel was renamed Peace Hotel, which is an important place for Shanghai to receive heads of state and friends from foreign countries. The Old-man Jazz Bar was rated as one of the best bars in the world by the U. S. Newsweek in 1996. The bar is filled with exotic foreign sentiments, from 8 p. m. to 2 a. m. every day, and visitors can enjoy the European and American Jazz music from the 1930s and 1940s played by the Old-man Jazz Band while savoring strong Italian or Irish coffee and special cocktails. Intoxicated in the aroma of coffee and the beautiful melodies of jazz music, one cannot help enjoying and feeling the old times.

In 1992, the World Hotel Organization listed Peace Hotel as one of the best-known hotels in the world. In China, Peace Hotel is the only hotel that has won this honor.

Address: No.20, East Zhongshan No.1 Road