Old Montreal

R.G. took the train, naturally, to Montreal last week to attend a modernism conference. The conference was at the Delta Centre-Ville, which gave participants a 'deal' of $160 a night for a sanitized business room. Scoffing heartily, R.G immediately located the lovely Hotel Champ-de-Mars in Vieux-Port, aka, Old Montreal. Look at the romantic haze that ensconces the place! (R.G.'s camera lens appears to be smeared in vaseline, which she cannot explain.) A double is about $60/night for a corner room on the third (in American terms) floor, and the first photo is R.G.'s view from one of her two windows. Make sure breakfast is included in your booking, which wasn't the case for R.G. due to her choice of online booking agent.

After full days of rigorous intellectualism, R.G. whiled away the evenings in the charming lobby (see what you can make out of it in picture 3) on her computer with a bottle of wine. That choice reflects R.G.'s poverty, not the state of Montreal's nightlife. Occasionally a fellow guest, an international student or other bohemian sophisticate, would join her. R.G. plans to make her way to Quebec City in the none-too-distant future, where she surely will be fully in her element, and she will revisit the good folks at Hotel-Champ-de-Mars before and after.

http://www.hotelchampdemars.com/rooms.html.

Lakes Superior and Michigan, Plus an Upper Peninsula Quarry

Although this blog is supposed to stay focused on charming and frugal accommodations, R.G. is making an exception with this post. She just got back from a week in the Upper Peninsula and on the west coast of Michigan. While her living situations were either not charming or not frugal, she feels she should give Michigan a boost as a vacation destination. It is, in a word, gorgeous.

The first photo is of Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, which runs along 12 miles of the south side of Lake Superior. The rocks are sandstone cliffs, reaching heights of 200 feet, cut by glaciers millions of years ago. The second photo specifies a beach to which R.G., her brother, cousin, cousin's family and friends pontooned. It was, as you can see, virtually uninhabited, the sand fine, and the water turquoise and surprisingly tepid. Lake Superior has a reputation as the coldest of the Great Lakes by many degrees.

R.G.'s clan spend most of their vacation at a duney paradise on Lake Michigan, on the south side of the Upper Peninsula near Brevort. R.G., alas, has no photos of that beach. She does, however, have this photo (third) of a spring-fed, limestone quarry a few miles north of Epoufette Bay, in which they swam and cliff-dove one perfect day. Chances are, the water was drinkable, although no one drank it. It was clear as glass and had cool boulders on the bottom.

On their way back to Detroit, R.G and her brother stopped off at their friends' Lake Michigan rental near Harbor Springs in the lower peninsula. The beach was private, meaning people could walk by but not plop their towels down, and the second day they didn't see one other person. It was the perfect way to say goodbye to the Great Lakes.

Montmartre, Paris

R.G. was recently off to France for her friends' wedding in the Loire Valley, and she popped into Paris on the way there and back avec her ami, T.P. The photos from the last time she stayed in old hotels of the City of Lights went missing, so it was very important that R.G. get a good place to document.

And so she did. The Grand Hotel de Clermont is absolutely perfect for R.G.'s purposes: on a quiet street in Montmartre, R.G.'s favorite neighborhood; the first residence of Edith Piaf as a young, busking teenager (R.G. forgot to ask for her room); firm mattresses (T.P. says hard); TV-free; 38 Euros for a double; and above arguably the best bar in Paris.

The bar is a real selling point. If you abstain, the Clermont loses some pull. The bartender is friendly but cool, the clientele is all local, the interior is charming and the music great old French standards as opposed to ubiquitous Euro crap. Even though their combined French is not impressive, R.G. and T.P. met many cheerful drunken folk, and, when they left the next night to broaden their horizons around the corner, they ran into many of the same revelers as if the party had not stopped. And that was a Monday and a Tuesday.

Grand Hotel de Clermont, 18 Rue Veron, (33) 1 46 06 40 99, no website, no credit cards.

Lake Huron

R.G. hails from the great state of Michigan, and this year her yearly trip to the land of the hand took her, her brother, her mother and two problematic dogs to Great Lake Huron. In consideration to this motley company, the lodging search had certain rigid parameters: They needed a lake cabin that welcomes canines, rents daily, is cheap and of course has R.G.-approved aesthetics.

All these needs were met at the family-owned Lusky's Lakefront Cottages, 8949 Lakeshore Rd, (810) 327-6887, www.luskys .com. $67/weeknight for one bedroom that sleeps a cozy four. R.G. forgot to ask, but the cabins look like they were built in the '30s or '40s and are real cuties. Each has a screened-in porch, a picnic table and a grill. Truth be told, the inside of R.G. and family's was perhaps overly precious. Too much heart stenciling, for example.

Also, the place absolutely crawls with children and dogs. R.G.'s camera caught only this one jolly Michigander (who fortunately is in sunglasses since R.G. has received no one's clearance) but she is not representative of the general Lusky population, which tends towards the tiny and the multiple. The only dogs that annoyed R.G. were the ones she arrived with and the kiddos were all happy and well-behaved, but R.G. imagines that that might not always be the case.

Despite the romping creatures big and small, Lusky's is civilized. There are paddle boats for rent rather than jet skis, thank god, the outdoor ping pong is free and there's a fire pit by the beach. One night, R.G.'s brother and she came back from yet another dog walk and found a sign on their door announcing "Fireworks Tonight" in a child's scrawl. They poured themselves cocktails and sauntered the couple yards to the beach, where they were treated to a surprisingly dazzling, legal, amateur, Michigan fireworks show.

Lusky's private beach is very nice, although all Lake Huron beaches on the Michigan side are stony. R.G. and family spent hours scouring the beaches for rocks, and R.G. left with an incredible haul of fossils. (She's not sure what to do with them now, since her Brooklyn apartment has this '30s-satin-bedspreads-and-ceramic-swans thing going that doesn't really work with fossils. Fossils require a 19th-century, Victorian, mad classification decor, which is an aesthetic R.G. appreciates but unfortunately doesn't inhabit.)

Anyway, once you gingerly step over the rocks and fossils, Lake Huron is clean, sandy-bottomed and, compared to the Atlantic, warm. R.G. swam happily every day. It was the only way to fully escape the dogs.

Tulum

R.G. just got back from Tulum, where she went with her boyfriend, A.J., for a wedding. Tulum's attraction is its gorgeous, crowdless beaches, its Mayan ruins, and its cenotes with stalagmites and stalactites. The sad town is just a road with second-rate knick-knacks and some decent food. Also, 16-ounce, glass-bottled Cokes made from cane sugar, but you can get those all over Mexico.

Cabanas Copal, pictured, is a mellow resort and spa--perfect for a wedding because you can take over the whole place, which they did. Copal has a little bar on the beach and seaside thatch-covered, swinging beds that are divine. One memorable day, R.G., crippled over with period cramps, popped a valium and spent the entire day on one of those beds.

Left to her own devices, however, R.G. would stay at Tribal Village, an even simpler 'resort' down the beach from Copal. Seaside cabanas for two are $35, and, although R.G. did not get inside one, they look very rustic. The beach there was completely deserted, and she was there at the hottest time of the day on the hottest day of her trip. R.G. wishes she had brought her camera to show you pictures. She also wishes she had a phone number for reservations, but the net will cough up nothing.

Guadalajara

The biggest draw to Guadalajara is the food. R.G. ate better here than she ever did in Mexico City, thanks to the excellent recom- mendations of David Baird and Lynne Bairstow in their Frommer's Mexico 2005 guide. (R.G. has a friend who is an editor at Frommer's and gives her free guides. R.G.'s glad she does have this friend, because otherwise she would have never consulted such a booshie guidebook.) R.G.'s willing to go out on a limb here and declare the best food in Mexico to be the morsels she devoured at La Fonda de la Noche (see picture in introductory post), 251 Calle de Jesus, ph. 33-3827-0917. La Fonda de la Noche offers incredibly delicious Durangoan cuisine at very easy prices; pretty, retro '40s decor; and charming, early Twentieth-century, Mexican background music. The owners, artist Carlos Ibarra and his childhood friend Raul, are wicked cool. R.G. could go on raving, but she'll stop now.

La Fonda de San Miguel, 25 Donato Guerra, ph. 33-3613-0809, is another fonda with fine, fine eating in a lovely atmosphere. R.G. doubts you'll be able to maneuver partying with the owners hours after the place has closed, but the restaurant is located in the beautiful colonial courtyard of a converted convent (see third photo, with stars hanging from the ceiling; photos before and after are of Posada Regis) and the food is tops.

Unlike in many Mexican locales, R.G. did not traipse around Guadalajara wishing she could stay in all the gems of yesteryear. She pretty much nailed her accommodations on the first try, which were in the converted, 1850, French-style mansion, Posada Regis at 171 Corona, ph. 3614-8633; www.posadaregis.tripod.com for even worse pictures than R.G's. As a single-family mansion, Posada Regis must have been very strange. The layout does not make any sense for a house. For a hotel, the arrangement of rooms around a central courtyard, like spokes of a wheel, is very nice. For $35, R.G. luxuriated in a huge, well-appointed, corner room with private bathroom and shower, which her photos do no justice. Also magnificient is the aforementioned covered courtyard outside the private hall attached to her room. Corona, while not terrible, is not the quiet, little street R.G. covets. As a result, she was able to detect street noise from her bed, a situation about which she was not 100% crazy. That withstanding, Posada Regis is a charmer.

Cuernavaca

In May of '05, R.G. had to go to Cuernavaca to do research for a dissertation chapter she's writing on Under the Volcano. Hence, she felt behooved to stay in Bajo el Volcan, the hotel converted from Malcolm Lowry's home and setting of Under the Volcano. Because the staff was so absurdly nice, R.G. feels somewhat uncomfortable dissing the place. But the over-renovation was tragic, and the price was a whopping $95 or something. R.G. cannot recommend it.

In contrast, for $30 she could have stayed at the Hotel Juarez, 19 Netzahualcoyotl, ph. 777-314-0219. She marched in snapping photos, and no one blinked an eye. That's the kind of nonservice R.G. appreciates. She doesn't like staff watching her every move. Anyway, unlike many shabby chic hotels, Hotel Juarez has made a half-assed effort to decorate their rooms and the results are commendable. Each room is different. Of the open rooms on the second floor, this one was R.G.'s favorite. And as you can see, the Hotel Juarez also has this low-rent pool! Pools of any caliber are very unusual in this kind of old hotel. R.G. can't imagine what would take her back to Cuernavaca--the town, while pretty, features hordes of yahoos--but if something did, she would stay here.

Mexico City

Centro Historico in Mexico City is a goldmine for the Romantic Gringo. Many hotels meet her exacting requirements. One of these is Hotel Zamora at 50 Avenida Cinqo de Mayo, ph. 5512-8245. (She had wanted to stay at the Hotel Canada across the street, because that's where Geoffrey and Yvonne Firmin stay in Under the Volcano. But she just couldn't. The decor was some kind of hideous '80s floral nightmare that she could not countenance, try as she might.) Very old and quite charming, Hotel Zamora stands about a block and a half northwest of the Zocalo. Doesn't have an elevator, so you have to be able to lug your luggage up at least one flight of stairs. Bathroom and shower in room, and as R.G. remembers it's basically like having a toilet in your shower. Lovely mattress. Spartan decor, just the way R.G. likes it, and wooden beams on the ceiling. R.G.'s room was small but servicable, and the crazy-high ceilings gave her a spiritual lift. Corner rooms may be larger, as is usually the case. Get a room on the little alleyway to ensure peace, when you open your big windows. There's a little balcony out there for smoking or for communicating with suitors, as the case may be. R.G. thinks she paid $14 or something for a double bed on the second floor, which is actually the third floor. Hotel Zamora is family-run, and they are good, leave-you-to your-own-business people. R.G. will be visiting them again.

Another excellent choice for the romantic traveler is Hotel Montecarlo, 69 Uruguay, ph. 5518-1418, two and a half blocks southeast of the Zocalo. A 400-yr-old converted monastery, Hotel Montecarlo was the hotel of choice for D.H. Lawrence when he was in Mexico writing The Plumed Serpent. Unfortunately, R.G. didn't take photos when she stayed there in July of '04, so you have to take her word for the ambience of faded grandeur. If memory serves, there is both a huge, sexy staircase and an elevator. Because she knew this discussion would be well beyond her Spanish, R.G. handed the concierge a note in Spanish that said something like, "If it is at all possible, may I have the room that D.H. Lawrence stayed in?", and he did not miss a beat in handing her the keys to a very large, charming room facing the street, on the second floor. R.G. would be interested to hear if similar requests result in the same room. But even if they don't, and it turns out that concierge was playing her like a fiddle, the big windows, high ceilings, private bathroom and shower, healthy double mattress and effortless Deco appointments were well worth the $18 she forked over.

The Romantic Gringo Makes Her First On-Line Appearance

The Romantic Gringo recieved her nom de plume in Guadalajara in May '05. She was sitting in one of the city's best restaurants, La Fonda de la Noche (photo on left) with the owner, Carlos Ibarra, complaining about the nonexistence of 2nd class buses to Mexico City. "First class buses are terrible," she insisted, "They play ridiculously loud American movies and air condition the hell out of you." "What?" Carlos asked in disbelief, adding, sensibly, "The movies make the trip go faster." "Not for me," R.G. retorted, "The windows don't open, and lots of times there's a curtain in the middle of the window. I want to see the Mexican countryside: That's the whole point of a bus trip!" "What a romantic gringo!" Carlos declared, laughing.

R.G. saw immediately that a romantic gringo was indeed what she was. Her traveling tastes are anti-bourgeois to the point of being unintelligible to the general public. For example, she abhors renovation. Wall-to-wall carpeting and TVs in hotel rooms make her cringe. This reverse snobbery frustrates others and subsequently herself in travelsite chat rooms. And while R.G. devours travel guides, often traveling with three at a time, she can't find the kinds of rooms she wants listed--or if they're in there, the descriptions obscure the goodness. All-important photos rarely attend, and R.G. needs to see photos.

Hence, R.G. has started this blog so that other romantic travelers of a certain idiosyncratic temperment might share her finds. She doesn't travel often, so the updates will be infrequent. The scope of her travels is small and repetitive: these days, Mexico is a favorite as is Paris. And she isn't interested in winning any popularity contests. People are welcome to think she's an ass, but she doesn't want to fight with them about it. To that end, she will list upfront her general desires in a hotel room, in no particular order:

1. Character
2. Charm
3. Age
4. History
5. Quiet street location
6. Unstudied decor
7. Frugal rates

For those seven graces, R.G. will put up with curfews and tromps down the hall for a shower. She will even withstand a lumpy mattress, although she does not like a lumpy mattress. She doesn't require any service at all, beyond basic, intelligent interactions with the staff. Her tastes are not everyone's; this blog has a very limited target audience. If you are a like-minded romantic traveler (no need to be gringo, of course; R.G. is not prejudiced), please share your discoveries. Homogenized traveling is taking over, and we need to give these old gems our (albeit limited) financial support.

Happy travels of faded grandeur,

The Romantic Gringo