Au revoir. Definitely.
Will try and catch up with posting when we get to Paris and a better internet connection.
Postcard from France – Menton Mon Amour
Postcard from France – Balcony
Postcard from France – Bouquet
Postcard from France – Soleil
Postcard from France – One of Greatest Breakfasts Ever
Postcard from France – Room with a View
Jonathan Adler at Le Parker Meridien – Palm Springs
The last day of our trip to Palm Springs was also the only day we had grotty weather. It was sunny enough for swimming in the hotel pool until lunchtime, but then we checked out and went for lunch at the Parker, with interior design by Jonathan Adler.
From the moment we walked through the enormous orange front doors it was obvious we were in the presence of decorating GENIUS.
Even the Minx thought so.
To be fair Adler is definitely a decorator, not a designer and he does make it easy for himself. The building is not especially exciting and he hasn’t done anything particularly original with the space. Pretty much everything is painted white with dark wood floors, and the whole would be incredibly boring if it were empty.
But he has created the perfect backdrop for his superb vignettes of furniture and quirky accessories all topped off with his incredible sense of colour.
Everywhere you turned there were little Adler-esque touches.
The restaurant – Norma’s – was quite blandly decorated but the food was good and it’s obviously worth it to come here and have a bit of nose around the hotel.
The outside spaces looked like they might be interesting, but by this time the weather was really closing in and it was time to get the hell out of Palm Springs.
Just a quick word here in praise of Virgin America. We flew down the West Coast with them and it was such a pleasure to travel with an airline that was on time, had superbly pleasant customer service, fabulous seatback entertainment for everyone, and, to the Minx’s utter delight PINK and PURPLE interior lighting. Truly the key to a little girl’s heart.
In other tales from our trip to Palm Springs, check out
The Ace Hotel and Swim Club here.
The Colony Palms Hotel here.
Out and About in Palm Springs here
The Aerial Tramway here.
Joshua Tree National Park here
Palm Springs Afternoon Out – Joshua Tree National Park
We were told by many people that we couldn’t go to Palm Springs and not go to Joshua Tree, so on the Saturday, after checking out of the Ace, and before checking into the Colony Palms, we drove out of Palm Spings, turned right at the wind farm (who would have guessed that so many wind farm fans read this blog?) and continued on the road through the desert and a slice of small-town America.
I only wish I’d been quick enough to photograph the teabaggers with the sign for ‘Less Gov, More God’. My first ever teabaggers! We don’t have teabaggers in Seattle.
It takes about an hour and a half to get to Joshua Tree and we were surprised to find that it was in fact cooler than Palm Springs, being higher up and much more windy. I’m not sure if this is always the case, but it might be worth bearing in mind if you’re sweltering down in the valley.
The park is named after the small stunted tree which dots the landscape as far as the eye can see. Vistas like this are so awesome and alien and strange to British eyes and so different from the cosy, cuddliness of Seattle. This is the America that I don’t even begin to understand, but which, I suspect, is an essential component of the American character.
According to the small book of walks we bought at the Visitor Center, we could quite easily have spent several days exploring the park. However, on the recommendation of a family at the hotel we decided to walk through Hidden Valley. This was a well-signposted, 1 mile loop through a rock-enclosed valley which was once apparently and excitingly the lair of cattle-rustlers.
This was the perfect length of hike for the Minx and I can’t recommend it highly enough for small kids. Lots of tiny lizards and cute chipmunks to observe and loads of ROCKS. TO. CLIMB.
I liked it too, as the incredible rock formation brought out my inner Ansel Adams
{To me, and to most other Brits I suspect, the Joshua Tree means U2. Here is my own small tribute to those irritating Irish rocksters. Why an album full of Irish angst is named after this park, goodness only knows, but that didn’t stop me having ‘With or Without You’ going round in my head for most of the day}.
And here’s another fix for all you wind farm junkies.
In other tales from our trip to Palm Springs, check out
The Ace Hotel and Swim Club here.
The Colony Palms Hotel here.
Out and About in Palm Springs here
The Aerial Tramway here.
Next week we will be concluding this series with lunch at the Parker, designed by Jonathan Adler.
Palm Springs Afternoon Trip – Aerial Tramway
We were very pleasantly surprised by the beauty of the landscape around Palm Springs. We most certainly weren’t expecting snow-capped mountains (nor the hugely impressive wind farm just outside the town, I love wind farms ).
We drove about ten minutes out of Palm Springs to a fold in the San Jacinto mountains and then headed UP.
I’ve been in a fair few cable cars in my life, but this was definitely among the most scary as the cliff face is pretty much perpendicular at some points and it was VERY easy to imagine crashing to a spectacular death. Matters were not helped by the base of the car turning slowly round to give everyone a 360 degree view and make it impossible to avoid looking at the terrifying bits.
And look what we did when we got to the top! So NOT what we expected to be doing in Palm Springs.
Here’s the view of the windfarm down below. You get a much better idea of just how arid it is.
And there’s Palm Springs itself, looking noticeably greener.
All in all it was good to spend an afternoon among the pine trees in PS. I would think it would be really fabulous when the temperatures down below get really excruciating.
Colony Palms Hotel – Palm Springs
The second hotel we stayed in was the newly refurbished Colony Palms Hotel, fabulously located close to the centre of downtown Palm Springs.
Again we’d been a little wary of booking here – a bit concerned that it would be a little too strait-laced and respectable for the Minx.
Again we needn’t have worried, the hotel was utterly different from the Ace, with a more glamorous and intimate vibe, but there were still plenty of other kids there, the Minx loved the pool and the staff could not have been friendlier or more welcoming.
The hotel was built in 1936 by a Palm Springs mobster and used to house both a speakeasy and a brothel. It has recently been extensively and expensively refurbished. The building is in a more traditional Spanish colonial style focused around a gorgeous swimming pool and restaurant area and surrounded by lovely gardens full of secluded nooks and crannies.
It’s not my favourite style of architecture – where is the reasonably priced funky modernist kid-friendly hotel in Palm Springs? – but it was certainly hugely comfortable and luxurious.
The interior is by Martyn Lawrence-Bullard. He’s used a lot of Spanish influences – coloured tiles, bright colours, spindly wrought iron – and mixed in some Turkish, Moroccan and Indian elements – with graphic embroideries, Indian statues and Moroccan tables tucked into the corners.
The hotel also has a pretty swanky poolside restaurant, the Purple Palm, attached, and the food was really good, the best we had in PS and that’s saying something.
Our room featured an incredibly comfortable bed, with padded embroidered headboard; big bottles of spirits in the mini-bar; an enormous bathroom with painted cement floor; embedded Spanish tiles (which I stupidly forgot to photograph) and a roll top bath. The cheesy photos of airbrushed models cavorting round the hotel were hilarious. I’m not sure if that was intentional.
The location was excellent, within walking distance of lots of great shops and restaurants and with the prettiest view we saw of the neighbouring San Jacinto mountains.
All in all it couldn’t be more different from the Ace and yet I’d recommend it just as much, and combining the two made for a really interesting Palm Springs overview.
See also
Ace Hotel & Swim Club, Palm Springs