Be they hotels New Hampshire, Grand Budapest, Rwanda, or even Transylvania, creatives have long sought inspiration within the storied rooms of boarding houses.
The well-worn tropes of a guest claiming their keys at the counter, asking the concierge for "any messages", tipping the bell boy or flopping with abandon on the honeymoon suite king-size never seems to get old.
Hotels and motels offer the same sense of security in a physical sense as they do a narrative one; a bed, a continental breakfast, an adulterous liaison here, a murder or two there.
Call room service, we're settling in for the night.
Perhaps it's because the urge to find shelter is so very primal (biblical, even) we'll sit happily with familiar anticipation as we clock yet another neon sign on the screen promising such viatic staples as "cable" and "AC"?
Seeking accommodation also puts us very much at the mercy of our hosts, so it's not surprising hotels in popular culture provide the opportunity for horror (Psycho, The Shining) as much as they do humour (Fawlty Towers, The Graduate).
New series Hotel Portofino screening on Foxtel is neither particularly horrifying nor particularly funny - or even particularly good - yet it offers some very comfy digs for the night as we wind our way along the seemingly endless streaming superhighway.
Set on the Italian Riviera of 1926, Hotel Portofino is based on the book J.P. O'Connell and straddles the worlds of The Durrells and Downton Abbey, the same way it does that manic period between the two world wars.
Yet, as we swoon over the stunning scenery, the meticulous wardrobe and the handsome cast (featuring Aussie actress Claude Scott-Mitchell) we can't help but feel something is a bit off about this show created by Matt Baker
There is a whiff of the meretricious to Hotel Portofino. Maybe it's because the series was actually filmed in Croatia and not Italy, or maybe it's because, in this enlightened 21st century of ours, to be rooting for a rich 20th-century family which has decided to install a slice of Britannia in a foreign country is a little enervating and even a little dangerous, lest our support for such a concept find its way on to social media.
Tasked with sapping the lion's share of our sympathy is put-upon matriarch Bella Ainsworth, played by Natascha McElhone. As a hotelier, Bella is the anti-Basil Fawlty; she is competent, cares deeply for her staff and guests, and shoulders the quotidian stress of running a bustling business without complaint.
Making life all the more difficult for Bella is the growing threat of fascism knocking literally on her ornate door, a caddish, profligate husband and money troubles, albeit the kind of money troubles which hinge on asking your wealthy father to stump up more cash to keep afloat the enterprise he has already underwritten.
And keeping with Basil Fawlty, Hotel Portofino doesn't like to mention the war, at least not in any overt sense, yet the trauma of the conflict in the trenches is everywhere; in the scars and the nightmares of Ainsworth scion Lucian (Oliver Dench), in the missing husband of his sister and single mother, Alice (Olivia Morris), or in the overall pall of unspoken dread associated with knowing in just a couple of short decades history will be repeating itself.
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The antidote to all this drama is to be found in the guests themselves, little dioramas of distraction within well-appointed rooms. We have old money aristocrats, a wartime medico, a flashy Gatsby-esque American, former flames, even burnt-out tennis stars, all finding their way to Hotel Portofino, all seeking something different, some kind of balm, their desires invariable requiring the involvement of Bella, who manages to look freshly laundered and stunning in every encounter despite the fact she clearly has no time to sleep.
Downstairs, in a jaunty kitchen, which could easily host the next series of Great British Bake Off, there is the staff, expats who have come to Bella's aid and are often left marvelling over European foodie exotics unheard of in the old country. Scusi? Did someone say olive oil?
It's also downstairs we find our supporting heroine, Constance March, played by Louisa Binder. As if straight from Hardy's Wessex, Constance (you could not think up a more Hardy moniker) represents the salt of the earth Brit for whom someone like Lucian should fall if he could only shake his many demons (one of which seems to be a hinted-at attraction to the good doctor just down the hall).
At the end of our stay at Hotel Portofino, as we pack away our unisex, one-piece swimming trunks and pocket a few little bottles of shampoo, we may not find our trip to Italy/Croatia has provided us with the perfect getaway, but it has at least added to a long list of accommodation stories for which we continue to be suckers.
As The Eagles put it, you can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave.
