Category Archives: My Favorite Places to Stay

California Dreaming on the Ski Slopes

I had planned a ski trip with my son to Colorado’s Telluride.

I even booked a room at a cool looking hotel, the Madeline Hotel, and paid a nonrefundable deposit. We were all set to go. But frantically, my son kept telling me that Colorado had one thing missing and that was the snow. It seemed to have more rain than snow and the conditions were looking London-like; not what you tend to think of when you imagine Colorado skiing. Add to that a New England winter where we had barely a dusting and I was imagining that global warming was catching up with my winter activities!

What to do then? At the last minute, my son, who had taken on the role of a meteorological expert, spotted a storm from the Pacific that was heading right for Tahoe in California. I hadn’t been there for years but this sounded like a plan! California skiing!

The first thing I had to do was call the hotel in Telluride and see what kind of deal they would give me. After a couple of phone calls, it turned out that a nice guy who understood the dilemma offered to give me a full refundable credit with a one year expiration date. Very cool service I thought. I will be getting to Telluride within the next 12 months to enjoy the beautiful town and what looked like a beautiful hotel. It was a smart move. I have told more people that this hotel is great…and I have not even stayed there!

In the meantime, I reconfigured my flights, flew into Reno, met my son, drove in a four-wheel vehicle up to Tahoe and within 20 minutes we encountered the blizzard that would stay with us for two and a half days.

It was enough snow for a season and we got the weekend of weekends!

Yes I did manage to ski through the blizzard-like conditions, hit the powder awkwardly at first, and waited for the sun that eventually came out on Monday. What I did get was this extraordinary appreciation of Tahoe’s ski location. We skied Alpine Meadows three times, Northstar once, and Squaw Valley once. Some of the vistas from Alpine Meadows across the lake were unbelievable. We stayed near Tahoe City which is a delightful city courtesy of a great Air B&B. I had dinner at Sunnyside Restaurant where the fish tacos were brilliant and service was fantastic. Everything and everybody was about the conditions. Alpine was the favorite with the pure connoisseurs. It’s just got that air of non-gourmet authenticity about it. Not sure how well it will hold on to that when they connect Squaw and Alpine together next year.

What I loved about California skiing was that whole California vibe.

Everybody seems so basically very cool. You drop into the bowls and cruise the corduroy and such. On the lift at Squaw Valley I was with a whole bunch of people of mixed ages. My son had wandered off to some black trails and I was just hanging solo. Some guy asked if I had been here before. I told him I came through here hitchhiking in 1972. Everyone looked at me. The older guy said, “Wow, far out man,” and the younger kids just said, “Cool man! What was that like? ” Honestly I felt like I was a relic reporting from the hippy trail. It was like a scene from the movies and that was what hitching around in ‘72 was basically like. One VW van too many. Glad I made it through and happy to make it back to Tahoe again!

Rome

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I love Rome.

From the moment I jump in the cab, there is a sense of gradual transition as you journey into this incredibly beautiful city filled with dust, cracks, and occasional garbage bags. It’s all here.

For me it begins as we pass the Sheraton Hotel. Out in the distance is Esposizione Universale Roma (EUR), a 1930’s modernist vision community of how Rome should be in the new world. It didn’t really work out that well but it left us some interesting buildings and now a trendy neighborhood with parks and metro access to both the beach and the center of town. That’s the other thing about Rome – it’s a beach city. The Roman port of Ostia is connectible by metro from the beach resort through Acilia and trendy living areas of Rome to the Colosseum.

Then for me the real transition begins. The first sight of any significance is the white marble Pyramid of Cestius outside Porta San Paolo gate. Then you make that turn up the Aventine Hill with the Palatine Hill facing you. Residential palaces in pink Roman stone look down on the vast field of grass that is the Circus Maximus, one of the largest arenas in the world during roman times.

It becomes frenetic and exhausting at this point with ancient fragments popping up every second it seems. The right turn at the bottom of the hill takes you by the Bocca della Verità (The Mouth of Truth). Opposite from that there is a Greek temple then a Roman temple and as the roads start to move around, you start to see what looks like the Colosseum but in fact is Marcello’s amphitheater, the Teatro di Marcello. Behind that is Octavia’s portal and the Jewish ghetto. On the right side lies the most glorious juxtaposition of stairways anywhere. There is the very subtle Capitoline Hill Stairs, the Cordonata, right next to the severe and steep medieval stairway that leads to the Basilica di Santa Maria in Aracoeli. On the right hand side beyond the stairways is the slightly incongruous, but ever faithful tourist site for lost travelers, the 19^th century wedding cake built to commemorate the unification of Italy in 1870 named the Vittorio Emanuele monument.

We are now in the Renaissance period with the Piazza Venezia with Trajan’s Forum on the right and I have disappeared into Rome before even my first cappuccino.

Rome Pietro Place Peter Jones Rome Steps Pietro Place Peter Jones

Zurich

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I had never been to Zurich before and probably will never go back.

Last year I was in Lausanne and promised myself never to return! I added it to my list of boring places – Deauville, Trouville, Biarritz. Places that I was curious about but couldn’t muster up enough energy or desire to return. Cross them off the list and add them to Cyprus and a few other places that I have been inquisitive about and will not go back to. But Zurich…I am torn.

This year we descended upon Zurich because I had heard some great things about it. A good nightlife, diverse restaurants, and an overall beautiful city. We stayed in the Stork Hotel. A fabulous location in a great part of town. Café stools outside overlooking the river made it utterly charming and even with cold weather, they provided blankets! I loved this hotel. A pure Swiss scene with beautiful houses over the Limmat River, three towering clock towers, and an extraordinary museum, the Kunsthaus Zürich, packed chock-a-block with masterpieces through the ages. There was a lot of Giacometti, in fact the whole family of Giacometis, a fair amount of Chagall, and a splash of Picasso and other xtraordinary artists. It had the lot. It was slightly overwhelming!

There were the two principal churches in Zurich with their stained glass windows rendered more spectacular by the artists whose paintings I had just seen in the museum. The walks were pleasant, the streets and squares were made with lots of cobblestones, all extraordinarily clean. Everything spilled onto the lovely river, even the Bahnhof with its underbelly filled with shops and eateries was decidedly clean and accesible. And of course there were swans. Lots of them.

This is a city with enough to do if you plan two or three days max.

On the restaurant scene, there are expensive places that have an iconic history in Zurich folklore like the Kronenhalle. The food there is pure Swiss with rösti, lots of meat, and fabulous desserts. The ambiance is extraordinary. Original artwork is all around – a Chagall here, a Miro there. Not far away there is Brasserie Lipp, one of Paris’ most reputable brasserie’s transplanted into the heart of Zurich. There are less expensive options and of course a few pubs where you can grab a beer, a burger, and watch a soccer game. The nightlife was a bit thin and daytime was a little quiet. Everything was very orderly and very Swiss. The tram system was incredibly efficient and very clean. As I walked along the narrow alleyways by the river and crossed one of the smaller bridges to get to the Church of the Grossmünster, I thought of how civilized this place is. Probably a nice place to bring the kids up. It’s a bit like Vancouver. But I really do not think I could live here!

Vancouver – Hit or Miss?

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Having spent several days on the West Coast – a little Seattle earthiness, a bit of the gorgeous climate of San Diego, and a touch of L.A. – I had this absolute desire to go to Vancouver. I am not really a Canada freak but I do enjoy it. I quite like Montreal partly because you get to try your French skills out. Quebec is old world charm and the restaurants are not bad. Frankly, it’s also not far from Boston. But Vancouver, I had heard, was a fun, vibrant, and cool city with an incredible ski resort not far away, Whistler. So off I went.

Canada has an incredibly efficient entry and exit customs clearance facility. It is orderly, there are people who direct you with a smile, the machines all work and it is relatively quiet and highly civilized. The journey in from the airport is pretty stunning. We could make out beautiful waterfront glass skyscrapers that faced the mountains on the other side of the bay. The mountains were huge and there was snow on the top. It really was a breathtaking setting. We came in through the charming Granville district and then headed through a bunch of boutique shop fronts before getting to our hotel, the Rosewood Georgia. I was liking this place. The Rosewood was right in the center of the city and I have stayed at Rosewood properties before and I like the chain. The hotel was, as is always the case at Rosewood properties, excellent on service and detail and I felt sure that this was going to be a fun few days.

We had planned to do sightseeing the following day, visit the Granville Island famous for the marketplace, take a little ferry ride around, head over to the Vancouver Convention Center, and maybe even try a seaplane ride. So why did I find myself going to a James Bond movie at 7 o’clock the following day? There was something about Vancouver that was not quite making sense. It was a bit dull and there were not that many people around. There was a phenomenal exhibition at the Vancouver Art Gallery highlighting the Group of Seven and Canadian painters influenced by them. But after that, it got a bit thin out there. We did not go for the seaplane but we did discover a great seafood restaurant called Coast. They had dover sole!

The next day we went to Whistler and it snowed. The drive up was absolutely spectacular but Whistler was one of those fake villages that had been put up a few years ago and it did not look like there was much of a scene beyond the usual blah blah. The snow did look great, although I was not skiing, but it was fun to be in the thick of skier talk in the gondola. So, the scenery is stunning, the snow levels are higher than comparable ski resorts in Colorado but it still was not convincing.

I felt a bit sheepish about it. Everyone had said that this place was beautiful but I seemed to have missed it. Maybe it was the seaplane I should have taken or maybe it was just a weekend when everyone was away. The city had no edge to it. Maybe I will go back and look for it again next time.

Image credits: Vancouver Sun and HelloBC.com

Hotel Innovation – Their Loss or Ours?

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It is fascinating to think about missing the boat. Blackberry missed the boat and they have been waiting at the port ever since. Myspace missed the boat. Digital cameras, except for the professionals, have all but disappeared. Embedded GPS systems in cars are useless. Not only do you save $1,800 for the GPS and add-ons that you might not want, but on your smart phone you have the best GPS system in the world.

So when I was staying at a hotel the other day, I was thinking of how hotels have also missed the boat in terms of ‘hotel innovation.’ Instead of adapting fast, they still hold on to all of those things we do not need. The telephone in the room, the clumsy alarm clock that nobody can ever work, room service that sucks, and is not available when you want it, dry cleaning and washing facilities that are so horribly expensive that you start to wear your underpants inside out every other day, and who pays for movies on tv? Nobody unless you are a loser. What about the gym? One treadmill, a tired looking universal weight system, and a mat that has not been replaced for four years does not compete with the state of the art gym I can grab using my phone to locate. Incidentally, I do not have to ask somebody to call a cab, I already Ubered it and it’s waiting outside for me. Fact is, armed with my iPhone and my Netflix account, I can get everything that I want.

Why don’t hotels get into our groove and stop trying to provide us with things that we do not want or need and rather sink into what we’re doing and access information? Incidentally, if I have to walk by another discarded plate of somebody’s breakfast, lunch or dinner in the corridor, I’m going to lose my mind. What do hotels need to do? Provide great beds, decent lighting, a great shower, charging facilities, a hotel app so that I can easily access things that are close by, and provide products that you can see and use. The rest I will take care of myself.

Image courtesy of boardingarea.com