Hotels Galore
Posted by Hans Ericsson | Under Alternate Tourism, Destination Spotlight Monday Jan 26, 2009We had some good feedback on the Ice Hotel blog entry, so here are some more zany and interesting hotels from around the world!
Hotel De Vrouwe van Stavoren
At first glance, the Hotel De Vrouwe van Stavoren appears to be a warm friendly hotel tucked away in the quaint port town of Stavoren, Netherlands. Upon closer inspection, you will find so much more! What makes this hotel stand out, is its unique housing arrangements. The rooms are made of empty 14000 liter wooden wine casks! Inside of each room, you access the cask through a doorway, and in the cask is two beds and a couple of windows with a scenic port view. The casks have been cleaned and dried, and provide a very cozy atmosphere for travelers in the Netherlands. A car rental in Amsterdam will get you there in under two hours.
Hobbitton
If you’re as much a fan of The Lord of the Rings movie trilogy as I am, you will undoubtedly want to make a trip to New Zealand at some point in your life. While checking out the now famous locations from the film, you can set up a base camp at the Hobbit Hotel in Otorohanga, New Zealand. Here you will find two hillside burrows, that have been reproduced as working replicas from the film. They are however, slightly larger than scale, so you won’t have to be ducking under doorways or running into light fixtures. The Hobbit Motel is actually part of a company called Woodlyn Park, who also has rooms set up in an authentic train car and a room in a once active military plane! You can get to Woodlyn Park in about 2.5 hours with a car rental from Auckland.
Sala Silver Mine
Who hasn’t at some point in their lives wanted to burrow themselves into the ground and stay the night? Well now you can, sort of. The Sala Silver Mine used to produce massive amounts of sliver, and is now closed, but tours are still available. In Addition to the tours, you can stay the night in the cave, 300 feet below the surface. You get dinner, and one of the quietest nights of rest ever. When the morning comes, the guides come down with breakfast before leading you back to the surface. It’s about an hour and a half drive with a rental car in Stockholm. Sounds like a deep experience!
Do you have an interesting hotel story from Europe? Post a comment and tell us all about it!
Italy is a charming state with historical cities, scenic countryside, mountains, nice-looking coast and art riches.
It is virtually impossible to travel in Italy without encountering something historic – Italy has the most UNESCO World Heritage Sites on the planet, and there are plenty of things that UNESCO doesn’t get at numbering that are likely older than whatever you’ve encountered before. This is a nation with history.