Let someone else do the turkey – stay in a hotel this Christmas

Can not face cooking or the invasion of rellies? Hole in a hotel instead. This will be your best gift ever. London Charlotte Street Hotel is a chic boutique option, or try a more rural festive hospitality

Last Christmas, you'll recall, was brutally cold fabulously. A real winter has turned to lakes, lakes and mothers in the rinks, people in packets of wool and the crystalline sky. Work commitments meant I could not leave London to join my family in a house on the shores of Loch Maree in the north-west Scotland, where the snow was deep and the temperature dropped to-16C. Instead, my wife and I set up at the Hotel Charlotte Street.

On Christmas Day, I talked to my brothers and sisters. "I'm sad not being there, I said." But to increase our bathroom has its own steam room. "It was a long silence. A brother finally replied." Great! The steam that I can see is when I exhale. "

There are many reasons to find yourself adrift at this moment the most supernatural of the year. It happened to me before. My second last Christmas was in Washington DC where I was stuck alone in an apartment empty of furniture or food, save a Terry's Chocolate Orange my sister had kindly sent. After I ate, I collapsed with a massive allergic reaction. My worst Christmas was in Zaire during the 1996 war, when I was captured in the jungle between the Zairean army and frightened and disturbed Rwandans approach. This was … what is the right word? Oh yeah, shit.

I was at the Hotel Charlotte Street, with my wife was the opposite. It was luxurious, safe, friendly, delicious, romantic adventure and a way to stay in a hotel is so rarely. Because everything is different this Christmas. It is a little bit surreal.

The hotel is owned Firmdale, which created a beautiful line in the boutique hotels in London – including The Hotel Covent Garden and Soho Hotel – and now in New York, Crosby Street Hotel.

The Charlotte Street Hotel is nice from the outside, with striped awnings, flags, and in summer tables in the street. This facade, and the weak, the rich light, feels as warm in winter. We checked in on Christmas night, the staff told us they would be with us all along until Boxing Day. At times it felt a little less formal than usual, as if we were all on a boat, somehow adrift.

The hotel was almost empty and we had to stay in the penthouse. Alison is happy. There was a sofa, a TV we could only dream of owning a bed and, oh the decadence, even the bathroom wet their own TV. The best that is that the windows looked out over the roofs of London and the center was the BT Tower, with its huge display showing the liquid smiling snowflakes dancing all night.

Tonight we drank a cocktail at the bar of zinc along, the holiday spirit, the bartender about a family member. We bumped into people we knew in town for a last shopping, and who were also in a festive and relaxed mood. Come 23:00, and strengthened with alcohol, we slipped around the corner from the Midnight Mass at All Saints, Margaret Street, the explosion of a neo-Gothic church. When I told a friend of my plan, he burst out laughing while the greater Anglican I know. "This is the campest church in Christendom," he said.

And it really is. The story goes that the choir had to complain to the Minister because his singers were choking on industrial quantities of incense being thrown around. The minister knew Alison because of a picture she had made to the memorial chapel of a church sister in Edinburgh. Again, it felt good in spite of our usually means non-religious practice. We walked 10 minutes back across the frozen streets full of goodwill.

On Christmas Day in London feels like one of those disaster movies where everyone has disappeared. The streets are deserted. The hotel, after sending a breakfast in our room, quietly began preparing lunch. We struck out to build our appetites. There is a photo of me in Soho, in the middle of a road than on other days is animated by life, but it is empty. Alison said I looked like I was alone in the world.

We continued up to Waterloo Bridge, which offers the greatest view of London, the full achievement of generations of the city built along the River. And then again, a change and down for Christmas lunch. And now, suddenly, the hotel was full. From the streets around people descended on the dining room, Charlotte Street, each table of a famous family feuds or couples laughing and fighting and wearing hats and being brilliantly rights.

Curiously, this is the moment that I felt a little sad. I thought the lunch was happening in the far north. My parents died before I was 21 years old and I am close to my brothers and sisters. Even under the most Arctic, ultimately, is with them that I want to be, or with my in-laws, who were in a house overlooking the Firth of Clyde. But sometimes it is impossible (and for some people even not desirable), and the Charlotte Street Hotel offered the best alternative imaginable.

By evening, the bar was empty apart from Kevin Daum, an American guru of self-help was in London researching a book. We chatted for a while and he showed us a tattoo on his chest which reads, in reflection, "New York Times Best Seller." Illustrating perfectly the sense of the surreal, he told us it was so every morning he could remember of his ambition as he was shaving in the mirror.

We left Kevin and slipped into a private room of the hotel, we make drinks from the bar honesty. The tables in this room are real Bloomsbury Group and very good. My wife recognized originals by the likes of Duncan Grant and Vanessa Bell. We finally returned to the room and fell asleep at the snowflakes dance outside the window, with the wrapper still on the bed.

The next morning, I dressed quietly at work. As I let myself out, Alison was still asleep, but smiling.

• From December 19-30 double at the Hotel Charlotte Street (020-7806 2000 firmdalehotels.com) cost £ 258 per night. Christmas Day lunch costs £ 95pp

More Source:

Let someone else do the turkey – stay in a hotel this Christmas ...
Cornwall + Christmas and New Year | Travel | The Guardian
Wales + Christmas and New Year | Travel | The Guardian
Guide: Where to Dine on Christmas in Chicago - Christmas Feast ...

Related News:

Details :
Submited at Saturday, December 4th, 2010 at 9:00 am on Restaurant by john
Comment RSS 2.0 - leave a comment - trackback

Leave Comment Here...

404 Not Found