There's no place like home for a summer jaunt.
The world's most expensive overnight accommodation, Forbes magazine says, is the Imperial Suite at the President Wilson Hotel in Geneva. Converted into Canadian dollars it will set you back $45,656 for one night, but no doubt your bedcovers will be turned down in the evening and you'll find a free chocolate on your pillow. Why not stay a week? What's $320,000 when you're having fun? The second and third most expensive hotel rooms are at the Royal Suite at Grand Resort Lagonissi in Athens, at $35,213 per night, and the Bridge Suite at the Atlantis Hotel in the Bahamas, at $34,336.
How can people so smart that they've made themselves fabulously rich be so stupid that they shell out tens of thousands of dollars for one night in a hotel? Maybe they're addicted to what Forbes calls "hot and cold running butlers and maids," but for $45,656 White Point Beach Resort near Liverpool, NS, would gladly put you up for a whole year, and in a cabin overlooking the Atlantic surf crashing on a powdery white beach.
The rates in the Forbes rankings are so extreme they're ludicrous, but travel magazines routinely recommend quarters that cost from $500 to more than $1,000 per night, whether they be in London, Paris, Tokyo, New York, Milan, Prague, Bermuda, Barbados, Sydney in Australia, Bora Bora in French Polynesia or, indeed, almost anywhere in the world.
But not in Atlantic Canada. We often forget how lucky we are just to be kicking around mid-summer in a neighbourhood that's not only gorgeous but relatively inexpensive to tour. While living in Moncton, my wife and I often make weekend trips to the Radisson Suite Hotel in downtown Halifax. It's close to the Neptune Theatre, has terrific newsstands, the harbourside boardwalk, the lively crowd and driving blues at Stayner's Wharf Pub and Grill, and superb restaurants-including da Maurizio, Bish World Cuisine, Seven, Deco, and Il Mercato. We always get a suite at the southeast corner of the eighth floor. It has a refrigerator, microwave oven, a stainless steel sink and generous bathroom. The living room windows look south and out to sea, and east toward Dartmouth. The bedroom, with a second television set, also looks east towards the bustling ferries, noble tugs, stately container ships and towering oil rigs in for repairs. In short, we have magnificent views of a magnificent harbour. A set-up like this might well cost $900 per night in Manhattan, but we pay all of $126, and the price includes the most generous continental breakfast we've ever eaten.
You can find similar bargains throughout Atlantic Canada. If you drive around the Cabot Trail this summer-and travel magazines still rate it as one of the most stupendously scenic auto routes in the entire world-you might end up at Inverary Inn in Baddeck. You'll pay $145 per night. That's pricey by the unwordly standards of us down-home rubes but, to Americans with fistfuls of cheap Canadian dollars, it's a steal. After all, as a tourist from Pennsylvania raves on one website, "Surroundings were incredibly beautiful and the natives and staff are as nice as can be… Resort was very comfortable, well maintained, and the rooms were quiet, clean and reasonably elegantly furnished. Food was very good."
Over in St. Andrews, NB-not only one of the prettiest seaside villages in North America but a takeoff point for whale-watching and sea-kayaking-Seaside Beach Resort will rent you a waterfront suite, complete with bedroom, living room and kitchen, for $90 per night. In the heart of Charlottetown, the Snapdragon Bed & Breakfast enchants guests from all over the world. Many return again and again, claiming its service, friendliness, decor, furniture, garden and good-morning cuisine combine to make it the best bed-and-breakfast they've ever visited. Not bad for $120 per night. Corner Brook, NL, is a good starting point for exploring the haunting Bay of Islands and also Gros Morne National Park, where the breathtaking and mysterious fiords rival anything you'd see in Norway. A room with two double beds at the Holiday Inn in Corner Brook costs $109.95.
Finally, my wife and I plan to board the Ocean Limited late one weekday in July, spend the night in a spacious bedroom with two lower births, sit upstairs in the observation car as the train hurtles through the early morning light towards Montreal and disembark downtown just as everyone's rushing to work. We'll spend one week in a luxurious little apartment-with a balcony overlooking Mount Royal-at Clarion Hotel Suites, attend the International Jazz Festival and then return home by rail. This jaunt will cost us about $2,500 but, if you love trains, jazz and Montreal, no finer adventure begins and ends in Atlantic Canada and, heck, the cost is an eighteenth of what we'd spend for one night at the President Wilson in Geneva.
Go figure.