Boutique Hotels

I just love boutique hotels. They're intimate, quaint, unconventional yet simple with a touch of class. Boutique hotels are like individuals, they have an acquired personality once you get to know them more. At first you'll find them a bit strange and different but later on you will feel at home with them. Check out more boutique hotels at this website (snagged some pictures there... hehehe!).

Hotel Lisbon Plaza, Portugal

JIA Hotel, Hongkong

Aigalos - Santorini, Greece (aaacck I love Santorini!)

Hotel Oceana - Santa Monica, California

The first boutique hotel that I stayed was in Italy, back in 1998, specifically at the Italian Lakes District. Well it's been 10 years since then and I couldn't find my tour catalogue but I can clearly recall that hotel. It was an old house, which was as big as the Von Trapp family's house in Salzburg, Austria. The bedroom had big curtains with big brass beds. The furniture were like Victorian style. The tub was like a stand-alone and the heater hose was attached onto the tub. The view from the bedroom was just magnificent. It was the entire lake and if we had a set of binoculars, we could see Milan on the other side of the lake. In a nutshell, it was very old but hey, it had a personality of its own. To bad we didn't take any pictures. We were reserving our film rolls for family pictures, with a historic view at the background. Yep those were the days when taking pictures was limited.

Then when I went to Bangkok last year, we stayed at the Davis Hotel. It's owned by a Thai senator. I immediately fell in-love with the hotel. One word: CHIC. The hotel staff had a trendy and not-so-hotelish uniform. In other words, it was quite funky. The coffee shop looked like a Cafeteria (the one beside Embassy), only it's brighter and better. The rooms were fantastic. We got a suite and it was so spacious! The furnishings were mostly teak wood, so the smell was actually dominant. Oh yeah, and I love the smell of teak wood. We got to check the other rooms and apparently they're not the same and theý're themed: Thai, Indian and Japanese.

From then on, I just really love boutique hotels. My parents and I wondered if there will be boutique hotels in Manila....

....and then.... there's already one that has been established in Manila! Woohoo!

If you guys still recall Mars, that hit disco back in the 90's, well they turned that discotheque into a Boutique Hotel! Whoa, those were the days when giddy HS kids from that school inside the village danced and partied the night away. If some were in San Mig Bar or Travessia or Cable Car or Sambo's, some were here in Mars. Wahahahaha good 'ol days.

Anyway back to the hotel. It's called Hotel Celeste. I found out about this at Chuvaness latest entry. I kept wondering all these years what will be there after Mars. Didn't realize that they'll be building a hotel there. Long and behold, it's not just some hotel or hostel but a boutique hotel! Chuvaness took some pictures of it and I couldn't help but snagged some...

I just love the headboard

Love that purple wall!

Ack I'm such a snagger. Hehe!

"Owned by the Sarabia family whose first hotel venture is the Boracay Tropics, Hotel Celeste plans to receive its first guests this month. Introductory rates are from Php 7,000 a night for a deluxe room and P10,000 for a suite, breakfast included." Source from Cocktales.

I just wish there will be more boutique hotels in Manila. It actually caters to those who don't want to stay in conventional looking yet pricey hotels. Hmmm hopefully, despite the crisis, some may invest in those types of hotels.