Photos courtesy Candy Wright
Back in 1969, John Lennon and Yoko Ono had just got married on March 20 and decided to spend their honeymoon at the luxurious Amsterdam Hilton (pictured above) in the Netherlands spending a week literally in bed, but without privacy — in fact, inviting the press to hang out with them in their hotel room. Why? To promote peace, of course.
“When we got married,” John Lennon recalled in 1980, “we knew our honeymoon was going to be public anyway, so we decided to use it to make a statement. Our life is our art. That’s what the bed-in was. We sat in bed and talked to reporters for seven days… In effect, we were doing a commercial for peace…”
The bed-in took place from March 25-31, 1969 in suite 902 of the Amsterdam Hilton. To stay in the “John and Yoko Honeymoon Suite” it would now cost you $1600 a night. To mark the 40th anniversary of the bed-in, the Amsterdam Hilton allowed the public to be able to visit the famous suite between March 21-29. The Amsterdam Hilton also had a photo exhibition on display called “From Holland with Peace.”
After renovation of the hotel, the suite was renumbered as 702, and is now decorated with a white decor designed by Yoko Ono featuring the famous peace slogans that John and Yoko posted in their hotel room during the bed-in. There are also John Lennon CDs on hand to play in the room.
At the time, John and Yoko were ridiculed by the media for having a bed-in for peace, but they had the last laugh since the media still reported the event, and as a result, got their message out. A few months later, John and Yoko would hold another bed-in in Montreal where they would record the famous anthem “Give Peace A Chance.”
The Amsterdam Hilton is offering a hotel special through the end of 2009 called the John and Yoko ‘Bed-in for Peace’ offer. For more info, visit the Amsterdam Hilton website.
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