Good morning New York

The Stora Hotel, Jönköping

For my TDWG 2014 meeting, I stayed at the fabulous Stora Hotel in Jönköping. You can read a bit more about the city and the hotel in this 1931 guidebook: Jönköping: Staden Forr Och Nu by Master Gudmunds Gille [The City then and now].  c.1931

Buenas tardes Panama¡¡¡

QotD: "Raffles stands for all the fables of the exotic East" - Somerset Maughm

"Raffles stands for all the fables of the exotic East" - Somerset Maughm

And my oh my, what a hotel it is! More like a compound or a small city, Raffles Hotel has just about everything you would want, including Sikh doormen.

Good morning on my last day in Florence / "It was pleasant to wake up in Florence, to open the eyes upon a bright bare room ..." E.M. Forster

"It was pleasant to wake up in Florence, to open the eyes upon a bright bare room, with a floor of red tiles which look clean though they are not; with a painted ceiling whereon pink griffins and blue amorini sport in a forest of yellow violins and bassoons. It was pleasant, too, to fling wide the windows, pinching the fingers in unfamiliar fastenings, to lean out into sunshine with beautiful hills and trees and marble churches opposite, and close below, the Arno, gurgling against the embankment of the road." - E.M. Forster, A Room with a View (1908)

I didn't have a "room with a view" (my window looked out on a small side street just off the Piazza Santa Croce), but a very good room it was. The Dante Room (only room on the ground floor) of the Hotel Santa Croce. All the staff at the hotel were fantastic and the location couldn't have worked out better for both work and fun.


w.hotelsantacroce.it/

The incomparable Dar Fes Medina, the only place to stay when you visit Fes, Morocco

Imane and Mohammed, Dar Fes Medina

I don't really want to write this post since it may make the Dar Fes Medina so popular that I won't be able to get a room when I return (which I surely will!).

I needed to hold a business meeting in Morocco and after looking at the things to do in Casablanca, I thought, who wants to spend three days in Casa when you can be somewhere else? Somewhere else like, say Fes? Since our next meeting was in Ifrane (about an hour from Fes) it made total sense. The intrepid William Ulate, Ely Wallis and I investigated options in Fes (specifically the old Medina area) and William found the "Dar Fes Medina". Thank you William and those who guided you there!

The Dar Fes Medina is (obviously) a "Dar" not a "Riad" (details: Dar have a courtyard, Riad have a garden). I stayed a total of four nights and it was one of the finest places I've every stayed (and I've been in very many places!).

Mohammed and Imane took care of our every need (from arranging guides to dinner spots in the labyrinthine media to (above and beyond) having a car and driver meet us in our next stop (Ifrane) and take us back to Casablanca.

From the food (where on the second day we had to request smaller portions), to the quality of the guides (amazing), to the effervescent ability of Mohammed and Imane to "fix" whatever our stay required made my stay (for work and pleasure) a memorable event.

Why the staff even played along with us and wore our BHL buttons!

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From left: Dar Fes Media owner, Mohammed; view from room 304 at night; room 304


 
From left: Dar Fes Medina; third floor; room 304


 
From left: BHL meeting space, actual work being done; catered lunch (cooked in house -- amazing food by the staff); interior courtyard of the Dar Fes Medina

Quasquicentennial of the Hotel Del Coronado in San Diego

One of the iconic hotels in the United States, the Hotel Del Coronado in San Diego, turns 125 this month. The hotel, on the National Register of Historic Places, is a fabulous place to visit (even if you don't stay there).

Suite 272 at the Edgewater Hotel, Seattle, Washington, yeah, yeah, yeah!

Back in 2007 I stayed at the Edgewater Hotel in Seattle. I didn't get to stay in Suite 272, aka the Beatles' Suite.

Today, August 21, is 48 years from the day the Fab Four stayed at the hotel.

True hotel bathroom origami for @outtacontext

Residence Inn, Anaheim

Minimalist hotel origami for the @OuttaContext museum

Hotel origami, a photo by martin_kalfatovic on Flickr.

Currently located at the Central Park Hotel and Casino, Panama City, Panama

Edward II Bed & Breakfast, San Francisco, R.I.P.

2009-06-29-IMG_2800
Originally uploaded by martin_kalfatovic

I sadly learned today that the Edward II B & B has apparently shut down. Located in the Marina District, close by the Presidio (and the old Internet Archive HQ) it was a friendly and convenient spot to stay (and did I say cheap, it was really cheap! but at the same time, clean and comfortable).

With the Internet Archive now located at its new location at 300 Funston, I guess there's one shouldn't feel too bad about the passing of the "Eddy 2", but it's a little bit of San Fran that I'll miss!