Bonjour Dude

Another hotel...Holiday Inn, Disney Resort, Paris.
Very circussy, just right for clowns I guess.
Which reminds me, did you know that the world is divided into two types of people?
One the one hand you have those folks who fear and loathe clowns, on the other hand you have clowns.
Euro Disney was surprisingly good, well it surprised me anyway. Three days in the theme parks is plenty, a day in Paris and a day visiting the nearby shopping malls made up our week.
Low spot queuing for about 2 hours to go up the Eiffel Tower. I wasn't expecting that, especially since the queues in Euro Disney were only about 10 minutes at most.
High spot? Well the Rockin'Rollercoaster in Warner Bros theme park must have been good since the viking princess and I managed 10 Aerosmith pumped rides.
The literal high spot was the top platform of the Eiffel Tower where I swear I heard this conversation about the tower;

"Dude, do you think that, like they paint this thing?"
" Oh yeah man, I think that they really do."
"Yeah but do you think that like they paint it in situ, or do they paint spare parts and bolt them on and then take the other parts away to paint?"
"Hey, yeah man, I bet that's like, what they do man"

Of course it is! Clearly there are two Eiffel towers, the one that you see, and the other one which is getting painted in a shed down the road.

Hotels of Scotlandica

I’ve been doing a fair bit of travelling back to the north coast, Orkney and Shetland since I last posted.
It can get a bit wearing spending the umpteenth night in another hotel. Mostly I’d rather be at home, but there are moments that compensate. As I write this I’m gazing out from a top window of the Kirkwall Hotel at the fascinating hustle and bustle of the small working harbour below, a splendid white cruise liner at anchor in sun-sparkled waters in the mid distance and the low lying outer islands of Orkney are scattered to the horizon. This morning I was watched by an owl perched upon a standing stone for a few minutes before it moved on.
Since I mentioned hotels here’s a Scotlandica guide;
The Kirkwall Hotel – vastly improved on the time I stayed here a few years ago. I’ve been here on two occasions in the last few weeks. The food is good, but be sure to book a table as lots of other people also know that the food is good. Service is patchy, but that’s probably because they are busy because lots of people know that the food is good. Whoever decorated the high panelled dining room ceiling with green leafy-effect garlands, twinkling fairy lights and golden painted wicker star mobiles probably thought it looks classy, in fact it looks like they’ve left the Christmas decorations up.
The old elevator that you have to manually slide open and shut the outer door and pull over the mesh grate at each end of the clunky bumpy trip is great.
The Orkney Hotel, Kirkwall – stayed there on two occasions a couple of months ago. It’s a big old place and one room that I stayed in was considerably better than the other, so it may be the luck of the draw as to whether you get to see the big or the old nature of the building. The one bar meal that I had was fine, but what’s that bar decoration all about? I think I can safely say that no one comes to Orkney to experience a wild-west theme bar!
The Ayre Hotel, Kirkwall – stayed there many times now. The word functional comes to mind. Food in the bar is much better than food in the dining room for some reason. Don’t expect a quiet night from Thursday onward as it’s next door to Fusion nightclub.
The Royal Highland Hotel, Stirling – very big and posh, but you get what you pay for I guess.
The Carlton Hotel, Edinburgh – very Edinburgh. No car park, but an £18 per night car parking service. Enough said?
The Royal Hotel, Thurso – get a room at the back away from the main road and you’ll be ok. Ok is the operative term here, but it’s Thurso for goodness sake, so ok is, well, ok! In fact ok turns into pretty damn good when you consider the alternative may be Wick.
The Pentland Hotel, Thurso – old and tatty when I was there, and take a torch as the 40 watt bulb in your room won’t allow you to see what’s in your bag, but remember you could be in Wick. Another plus is it’s the only place that’s ever opened the kitchen to serve me a proper breakfast because I had an early start.
The Viking Hotel, Wick – this place would be an awful hotel even if it wasn’t in Wick …and it is!!
Always stay in the flat in Shetland these days, but in case your interested The Lerwick Hotel is nothing special and a bit of a walk from the town centre. The Grand Hotel is nothing special and way too close to the town centre. The Queen’s Hotel is just right, and how many times do you get to stay in a place that’s built out into the sea, look down out of your window and see seals swimming under the water beneath you?

The list is getting a bit long now so to sum up, the worst so far was The Highland Gate, Glasgow – I know I stayed there, but remember nothing about it, in fact I’m not even sure that was it’s proper name. Whatever it’s called it’s near Murray Park, so that must have been the best bit.
The best food ever is The Orasay Inn in Suith Uist and the best bed was in the Royal Hotel in Inverness, a huge four-poster, if the Jacuzzi bath had worked it may have got full marks!
Even when I’m weary and just want to go home it’s difficult not to appreciate how lucky I am to be paid to work in places that others pay handsomely to enjoy.