checking out n hotel accommodation
Rooms with a
wow
focus: unusual hotels
n Enjoy falconry at Dalhousie Castle
S
Desert Cave Hotel
n
Coober Pedy cave room
convent Across the Channel, France has a number of chateaux which have become hotels, while Spain has its parador hotels and Portugal its pousada hotels, many of them former palaces. Spain’s Parador de Granada (www.paradores-spain.com) is a luxury hotel set in a former 15th century convent which is part of
102 tlm n the travel & leisure magazine
www.tlm-magazine.co.uk
n Where's the key, honey? I'm getting wet out here
Jules Undersea Lodge
taying in a hotel need not mean putting up with a homogeneous mega-chain urban slab with identikit rooms and little character. There are many extraordinary hotels that started life in a very different guise but now offer an accommodation experience with a twist. Castles, forts, palaces, factories, convents, ships and caves – all have been transformed into hotels. You can find them throughout the world, but you don’t have to travel far to enjoy a stay guaranteed to wow you. Fancy yourself as lord of the manor? You can live the high life and be king of the castle, at least for a few days, in several historic piles in Britain. Dalhousie Castle (www.dalhousiecastle.co.uk), near Edinburgh, is a grand, 13th century fortress that has been turned into a luxury castle hotel complete with dining room in the vaulted dungeon. Guests can try the royal sport of falconry to complete their regal fantasy. Built over 100 years ago, Bovey Castle (www.boveycastle.com) is now a five-star golf and spa resort set within Dartmoor National Park in Devon. Why not get family or friends together and take over a Napoleonic fort? Spitbank Fort, a mile off Portsmouth Harbour, has just completed a multimillion pound transformation to become a private, luxury destination with eight en-suite bedrooms, three private dining rooms and bars, a wine cellar, rooftop hot pool, sauna and sun decks. Guests have Champagne and canapés in Royal Clarence Marina prior to their private boat transfer. The fort can be booked from £8,000 per night for exclusive use through Clarenco (www.clarenco.com). Ireland has its own castles and stately homes now run as hotels. Among them are County Clare’s Dromoland Castle (www.dromoland.ie) and Adare Manor Castle Hotel (www.adaremanor.com), in County Limerick.
the famous Alhambra Palace overlooking the city of Granada in Andalucia. Italy, too, has some grand former palaces now welcoming paying guests. If those don’t float your boat, why not opt for a grand home from home that once plied the oceans? Stockholm’s Malardrottningen Hotel (http://malardrottningen.se) was the world’s largest diesel-powered yacht when it was built in 1924. Given to Woolworth heiress and socialite Barbara Hutton on her 18th birthday by her father, it welcomed royalty, movie stars and the world’s movers and shakers and is now a 60-room hotel moored near the city centre, its rich mahogany and brass decor preserved for today’s guests. For true nostalgia, nothing beats a stay onboard former transatlantic liner, the Hotel Queen Mary (www.queenmary.com), permanently docked off Long Beach. Step back to the glory days of the multiple holder of the blue riband for the fastest Atlantic crossing in one of 314 first-class staterooms featuring rich wood panelling, Art Deco fixtures and portholes. You can stay below the waves, too. Jules Undersea Lodge (www.jul.com) is a former underwater research laboratory that sits 30 feet underwater in a mangrove lagoon at Key Largo, in Florida. Operated for 25 years as a hotel, guests dive down to enter via a “moon pool” at the bottom. It has two double bedrooms, a galley with microwave and fridge and a dining area/lounge with TV where guests can watch fish swim by through the large
Spring 2012