Hold on to your plastic bricks, the LEGO Empire is about to get even bigger. Fans of the world’s favorite building toy will be delighted to hear that LEGOLAND California Resorts is set to be home to North America’s first LEGOLAND hotel. That’s right, the toy you love to build with but loathe to step on will be taking its place beside the many themed hotel destinations.
No, it’s not the latest celebrity-based reality show (though I wouldn’t be surprised if a like titled show is in pre-production somewhere), but a hotel designed for the cinephile. Located in San Sebastián, Spain the Astoria7 is rebuilt from the historic Astoria Cinema and each of the rooms is individually dedicated to personalities, actors, actresses or directors, who have attended the San Sebastián International Film Festival ever since it first edition in 1953.
Blood pressure be damned – I love salt and add it to everything from pizza to watermelon. To me, everything just tastes better sprinkled with NaCl, which is why staying at Palacio de Sal sounds so delicious. Located at the edge of Salar de Uyuni, the world’s largest salt flat, about 220 miles south of Bolivia’s capital La Paz, Palacio de Sal is the resort of choice to enjoy the amazing landscape of the region.
Birders get ready to “twitch” in high style. Bald Eagle State Park has opened a premiere bird watching hotel in the Pennsylvania State Park system—The Nature Inn at Bald Eagle. The 18,500-square-foot, 16-room building will provide full-service accommodations overlooking the park’s lake. This modern inn makes maximum use of green building technologies, while serving as a premier interpretive facility for bird watching.
The Hotel De Filosoof in Amsterdam features rooms that celebrate the life, work and thoughts of a particular philosopher. The “deep thought” decor takes inspiration from Georges Bataille’s concepts of sexuality and eroticism, Ludwig Wittgenstein’s philosophies of language, ethics and mysticism and Henry David Thoreau’s obsession with time, age and nature.
The closest I’ve ever gotten to a fantasy suite was watching commercials for Mount Airy Lodge in the Poconos as a kid. Back then, the idea seemed impossibly glamorous – the choice of heart or champagne glass shaped hot tubs surrounded by a forest of plaster Corinthian(ish) columns. But enough about a latchkey childhood spent under the soft glow of WPIX. Today’s theme hotel suites let you do more than pretend you’re garnish for a French 75. Taking inspiration from a wide range of sources, they promise a glimpse of fantasy life from Fashion Doll to Despot.
The recently opened SEVEN HOTEL Paris promises to elevate your expectations of the boutique hotel experience. Offering 28 Levitation suites with beds that float like feathers and tubs hovering off the ground, each room is designed to satisfy your loftiest desires.
A really incredible swimming pool is always a sight to behold no matter what the season. Seriously, it’s just a hole in the ground yet it manages to provide enjoyment for legions of people for years and years. The fact that some people actually take the time to turn their water filled hole into a complete and total master work of art is just icing on the cake.
And if you haven’t noticed, it’s approximately 116 degrees outside right now. So this might be a good time to track down one of these incredible swimming pools from around the world and take a dip. Your risk of heat stroke will thank you kindly.
Calling all bookworms. With over 6,000 volumes of books organized by the the Dewey Decimal System (of course), your stay at the Library Hotel in New York City will undoubtedly include the perfect book to curl up with at bedtime. Fashioned from a landmark 1900 brick and terra cotta structure, the hotel has been restored into a small luxury boutique hotel dedicated to all things bookish. Continue Reading
