Up on the rooftops

When I visit hotels, I like climbing up as high as I can to see the view from the top. I like to go onto the roof if possible - yes, I've had a few little expeditions through bits of the hotel I was not supposed to see! When I get onto the roof it is sometimes a whole different world.    I was thinking about this and found two rooftop scenes which are very different.  Both were taken from excellent hotels. The first, below,  was taken on a day of howling winds and brilliant sunshine from the roof of the Hotel San Roque in Garachico, on the beautiful Northern coast of Tenerife, in the Canary Islands.  The sea was roaring, deep blue with white foam, and I liked the contrast of the simple shapes of white and tile, against the mostly dark blue background.

The second is from the roof of the Al-Mamlouka hotel in the old part of Damascus, on a pleasant autumn morning. . The hotel is in a fabulous old mansion, beautifully tiled with a central courtyard where you can sit in a mirrored alcove, amidst fruit trees and a fountain.  It's all very peaceful, tucked away in the muddle of narrow, busy streets in the Christian Quarter.  What I love about this roof scene is that it is like a whole little world of its own.  People keep all kinds of things on their roofs in these closely-packed old houses - I specially like the minaret turret - or that's what I think it is. 

Hotel Room Price Number Crunching

The website Hotels.com has issued a list of hotel price trends over the past year, which is interesting in a sort of obsessive way.

Geneva had the priciest hotel rooms in the world this year, topping £155 per night. Monte Carlo, the most expensive destination in 2009, fell to second place at a measly £152 per night on average. New York City, Moscow and Johannesburg were third, fourth and fifth.

The cheapest cities were mostly in the ex Iron Curtain countries (though spot the odd-one-out). Riga remained in cheapest place, with average hotel prices dropping by 7% to £52 per night. Tallinn was second place, Bangkok, Warsaw and Budapest followed in third, fourth and fifth.

Steepest price rises came from Cape Town, where prices were up 54%. Trendy Shanghai was up 32%. Nairobi, Rio de Janeiro and Las Vegas also saw average price increases of 31%, 28% and 27% respectively. Rio and Shanghai are up and coming cities, and I think the South Africans will drop back next year now that the World Cup has come and gone.

The biggest price decline in hotel room costs in the world was in the Emirate state of Abu Dhabi with a price plunge of 35%. Not surprising, considering what happened there, alas, but rooms there now cost an average of £113 per night. Reykjavik was hit by the volcanic ash cloud, and prices fell 14% to average £77 per night. Tallinn's prices continued to drop (down 12%), as did St. Petersburg (down 11%) and New Delhi (down 10%). I wonder why Tallinn is doing so badly

The picture shows a most extraordinary ceiling in a very attractive hotel called San Roque, in the scenic North of Tenerife, Canary Islands.