The hotel in Madrid where Ernest Hemingway stayed during the Spanish Civil War was the Hotel Florida.
Opened in 1924 at Plaza del Callao, the Hotel Florida became a gathering place for foreign correspondents, writers, photographers, and intellectuals covering the siege of Madrid. Hemingway stayed there while working as a correspondent for the North American Newspaper Alliance, and Martha Gellhorn, then his partner and later his third wife, also used the hotel as a base.
The hotel’s location placed its guests close to the fighting. Hemingway reportedly joked that he expected a bomb to land on his typewriter every day. During the siege, he wrote The Fifth Column, his only full-length play, which draws on the atmosphere of wartime Madrid. The Hotel Florida also became associated with figures such as Robert Capa, Gerda Taro, and John Dos Passos.
A common mix-up is the Palace Hotel Madrid, another famous Hemingway-associated hotel. Hemingway did visit the Palace, but its role during the Civil War was different: it served as a military hospital. The Hotel Florida was the celebrated correspondent’s hotel during the conflict.