My Most Romantic Hotel: Hotel Sant Salvador |
How my main squeeze (now husband) and I ended up at one of the most romantic hotels I’ve ever visited, I’m not quite sure. We were itching for an international adventure. We decided Spain was calling, so we loosely planned a journey to Barcelona and, from there, the island of Majorca. We decided to stick to a budget in Barcelona, a decision that landed us in a very hot, very small (and very cheap) room without windows located about one block on the “wrong side” of Las Ramblas.
But during our visit to Majorca, we decided before the trip that it was crucial, in the vernacular of the day, to pimp it out in a phat hotel. And somehow, our pimp dreams led us to the tiny town of Arta and the Hotel Sant Salvador, a grand Spanish manse once home to a wealthy Majorcan family that now houses an eight-room, family-operated inn and Restaurante Ca’n Epifanio.
While most of the tourist attractions on the island are clustered near the famous beaches, Arta sits inland from the northeast coast. There is no water in sight, only dust from uneven roads that are more like medieval alleyways. Clotheslines are still hung between windows on the town’s main roadway. The remains of a castle tower over the hilly little enclave, where one car must often pull off the road to let another pass. Other than hike, golf (there are four courses within 15 minutes of the town) and stroll through the unpopulated streets, there is very little to do. But that is, perhaps, the most pleasing thing about visiting Arta. Its pace is otherworldly.
Each morning of our stay in the hotel’s second-floor Dos Mujeres room (pictured), a basket of fresh fruit, juices and other edibles appeared quietly outside our door. We’d rifle through it, then head out to explore the island in our blaze orange Opal, a hilariously little pod of a car. Afternoons brought happily uneventful hours spent by the Sant Salvador pool, time to admire the manicured grounds within its white walls, more time to laze about in our cavernous room, on the terrace and in the confines of the tiled bathroom’s decadent bathtub. Evenings followed with long, relaxing meals of regional cuisine at the hotel’s wonderful restaurant, a few glasses of wine in the bar, a conversation in the courtyard under the stars.
I’ve traveled many places since and stayed everywhere from bare bones tree huts to five-star hotels to a bed and breakfast with a glaring red heart-shaped Jacuzzi tub. And yet, when I stopped to recall the most romantic hotel I’ve ever visited, Sant Salvador jumped right from the annals of my travel memory to declare itself the uncontested winner.
I won't go into the hotel's particulars. Rates and discussion of in-room amenities would spoil my jaunt down memory lane. So in lieu of that practical information, which you can easily find on your own, I'll end with this: here’s hoping every traveler has such a hotel in his or her future.
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POSTED BY SYSADMIN - THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 2008
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