Room With a View
March 28, 2024
I’M A SUCKER for a good wallopping view. And who isn’t? A view stirs the soul. It hits those hard-to-reach visceral notes in the way a simulation — a painting, say — can’t.
I’ve seen some spectacular ones: Machu Picchu on a clear day; Hong Kong from Victoria Peak; an unforgettable rainforest panorama from a canopy walk in Brunei; the fantastical mountains of Torres del Paine in Chile; and so on.
Sometimes, though, you want something easy, and that’s where hotel rooms come in. Here, the magic is presented to you, no effort required, to be savored from the comfort of your bed or balcony. It’s thrill and chill at the same time, both exciting and relaxing. I’ll take a three-star room with a view over a five-star room without one, any day.
I spend over a quarter of my life in hotels, at work or on vacation, so I’ve had my share. They tend to be cityscapes, mostly. My favorite of which, thus far, was a nighttime vista of Dubai from floor 60-something of the J.W. Marriott.
But urban panoramas get redundant after a while. It’s the greener settings I prefer. Mountains, oceans, forests. For instance, watching the sun come up over the Serengeti, from a tent at the Ole Serai safari lodge in Tanzania.
And I remember a place in Ecuador, overlooking a valley. It was a hacienda-style hotel perched at the top of a mountain. A floor-to-ceiling window looked out over the town, more than a thousand feet below. And it wasn’t a gradual or tapered descent; this was straight down, a sheer vertical drop. Was it Otavalo, maybe? Or Baños? It was twenty-five years ago and memory fails me. A dig through an old Lonely Planet guide is no help either.
Which is too bad, because the room was incredible. You could sit and watch the clouds sweeping past, below you. Standing outside, the atmosphere made a hissing noise. It was, best I could tell, the sound of the clouds condensing. I have no idea of this is even possible, but I swear those clouds made a noise as they billowed by.
Nothing would ever beat that view, I thought.
And nothing did, until just a few weeks ago, when I stayed at the Ladera Resort on the Caribbean island of Saint Lucia. I’d broken the bank for a winter vacation, and while I expected the view to be special, judging from the online pics, I didn’t expect it to be this special. Stepping into the room, I actually laughed out loud.
It was one of those open-plan rooms with only three sides. The fourth side was a huge, unscreened balcony facing directly toward St. Lucia’s famous Pitons — a pair of party hat peaks, nearly three-thousand feet tall, that are part of an ancient caldera. The private pool was special enough, but it was the view — a sort of West Indies Machu Picchu — that stole the show.
That’s a custom of mine, by the way: immortalizing this or that gorgeous view with my ridiculous feet in the shot. Visit my Instagram stream and you’ll see others. Here’s a more pure version, sans toes.
Imagine feasting your eyes on that, dawn to dusk. I didn’t feel much like leaving the room.
So that’s the new number one. It was also the most expensive hotel room I’ve ever paid for, and to help assuage the guilt of having blown so much money, I think of it as compensation — a reward for all of the shitty and underwhelming views I’ve been stuck with over the years: all those times I’ve pulled back the curtain to behold a parking lot, an HVAC unit, an expanses of urban decay or, as Jonathan Richman put it, suburban bleakness. Heck, in Amsterdam one time I had a hotel room with no windows.
Meditating on the Pitons helps make up for what happened to me last summer at the Pullman hotel in Dakar, Senegal. I’d stayed in the Pullman many times, and my favorite thing about it was the view from the upper floors of the harbor and, in the distance, the famous (or infamous) Goree Island.
It had been several years since my last visit, and I was excited. But when I got to my room, a surprise was waiting. The top photo shows the view from my room in 2009. The lower photo shows almost the identical view in 2023. Speaks for itself. Progress or something.
The curved building with the triangular top is an old property that I once nicknamed “the Graham Greene Hotel,” because it reminds me of the sort of place where the famous novelist would have stayed, making journal entries in a sitting room with potted palms and a ceiling fan.
I was pleased to see it’s still there, and looks like it’s been renovated. The sight of that monolith, however, was devastating.
That’s nothing, though, compared to some other places. Allow me revisit a few…
I’ll add to this list as the misfortune presents itself.
(I need to confess, however, that the last photo isn’t mine. It was submitted by another pilot with whom I was commiserating on this topic.)
And don’t put too much stock in which particular hotels these are. Views can vary significantly room to room. A 40-th floor view from one side of a building might be a lot prettier than a third-floor view from another.
Maybe it’s ironic, meanwhile, to hear an airline pilot going on about views from the ground rather than those from aloft. So it goes, though. As regular flyers know, airplane scenery tends to be muted and indistinct. Altitude sucks away much of the grandeur. I’ve seen some amazing things — the glaciers of Greenland, the Sahara at dusk — but it’s mainly terra firma where the beauty is.
ALL PHOTOS BY THE AUTHOR, except for “Newark Afternoon,” courtesy of Dave English.
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19 Responses to “Room With a View”
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Shame what happened in Dakar.
Oddly enough, one of my favorite views is from the Sheraton that’s inside Charles de Gaulle aeroport. The interior is as sterile and boring as any Sheraton, but the plane watching from the rooms is great.
One of the best views I ever had was of the Alamo, right across the street from my 7th or 8th floor room at the Hyatt Riverwalk. It was great at night, so so in the day.
I think my favourite urban view from a hotel has been from an upper-floor suite at the Peninsula in Hong Kong, looking across the harbour to the Hong Kong Island skyline.
For a rural view, some of the rooms at Lilianfels in Katoomba, overlooking Australia’s Blue Mountains, are pretty spectacular.
The other would actually be a Premier Inn, one of Britain’s cheapest and most basic hotel chains. The one in Greenock has rooms that look across the Forth of Clyde toward Gare Lock and the Trossachs. It’s a beautiful view, just from the second floor. If you get a room on the wrong side, though, you look across a car park to a McDonald’s.
There was a Premier Inn in Newcastle, England, where my room looked into a ventilation shaft full of pigeons, only around half of which were alive. That was special.
In the early days of my career I flew a C-47 From SJU- Port O’Spain with ron in St Lucia, TLPL. I agree, the view is incredible, it took my breath away. Flying into the waterfront strip on Tortola was another magic spot.
I’ll put in a good word for the Hotel Seccy in Fiumicino. While they don’t have your epic nature views, if you’re on the good side of the hotel there are fantastic views of runway operations at the airport. Plus you can wander out of the hotel and find a dozen+ decent restaurants on the fishing pier/breakwater. (hint: order a fish plate)
If you’re flying out of Roma Fiumicino, you will almost certainly be part of the five hour morning elephant walk. God help you if your plane has an issue and you miss your departure slot, a 15 minute fix can become a 4 hour delay while you wait for a gap in the walk.
I used to have a habit of taking a photo out of every hotel room I stayed in. I thought I was the only one, but I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that I’m not. I stopped when I started traveling regularly to the same city for work, and generally staying in the same hotel, though I resurrect the habit for particularly good or bad views.
” Altitude sucks away much of the grandeur.”
Most people when they first start flying a drone will launch the thing up to 400 AGL and look amazed. But very quickly realize the view isn’t all that exciting. All the fun and interesting flights happen below 100 ft.
I was at EWRs Doubletree several decades ago, recovering after 13 hours TLV-EWR. No same-day connection, so the airline provided an overnight before tomorrow’s transcon flight home
Not a great room but it was reasonably comfortable and quiet with a view of the parking lot behind the hotel.
It was mid afternoon. The hotel’s back door opened. A clinging couple emerged. After a prolonged and passionate farewell embrace, they diverged, each to their own car. A fond farewell wave to each other then they went their separate ways.
– “Hello Young Lovers Wherever You Are”
– “There Are Eight Million Stories In The Naked City”
Etc etc.
All you nascent novelists out there, here’s your chance. The alternatives are endless. Pick your soap opera cliche and start pounding that keyboard
Ummm… nice bunion I guess?
Srsly the St Lucia pics are gorgeous.
I once checked into the MGM Grand in Vegas, and I demanded non-smoking; as they handed me my key, I was told, “No complaints about the view”. Hmmmm
My room overlooked a blank wall 3 stories tall painted black, I think I was behind the entrance where the giant gold lion was located, or maybe I was looking at a wall to the casion or convention building. At 12 noon, there was no visible sunlight.
Loved it for the non-smoking.
I once stayed in a hotel room somewhere in Costa Rica that technically had a window, but that window just overlooked the interior of the hotel.
LOVE your reference to Jonathan Richman. Natick, Massachusetts, of course. Underneath the powerlines. Punk before punk even existed! “Roadrunner once, roadrunner twice, we’re in love with rock and roll and we stay out all night…” I’m always happy to think that, when I’m flying, the pilot might be as cool as you are.
BUT, your post was way more interesting than that. I’ve followed your blog for years and really enjoy your outlook – especially this, where the “outlook” is the view from your windows. You have travelled, and posted, about some very interesting places for which I thank you.
And, in spite of all of this, I really appreciate your calm and intelligent postings about all matters of aviation. (And yes, I bought your book.)
“Right, bye bye.”
Patrick-
Dan Neil got a Pulitzer for his pithy automobile reviews.
http://www.pulitzer.org/winners/dan-neil
I suspect you can lobby for one too!
-Scott
The Desolation of Phoenix takes the prize! LOL.
I think I recognize that site in Oakland. It’s outside the new hotel on Broadway, a few blocks north of the Paramount Theater, yes?
The shot in St. Maarten looks like leftover hurricane debris from one a few years back. Maria? We were there last year and there is still a lot about.
Your photo from St. Lucia reminded me a lot of the former Shearwater Resort on Saba. Saba, this tiny spec of dust in the Caribbean is well worth a visit, particularly because hardly anybody even knows it exists. Just the tip of a volcano sticking out of the ocean. A magical place. Av geeks might know it for SAB being the shortest commercial runway on the planet. Nothing beats actually flying there. Probably as close to landing on an aircraft carrier as a civilian can ever get. But the views on that island (and the hiking) is what really takes the cake.
I know of Saba. I know it’s very popular with divers. Would I feel out of place there, as a non-diver?
Wonderful post. I enjoy your writing immensely, both as former pilot & interested individual