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rooms (some compact and others palatially large) are lined with artwork and dark-wood
paneling, while pampering flourishes include L'Occitane products, bathroom mirrors
embedded with TVs and automatic blinds so you can shower behind the floor-to-ceiling
windows without being seen from outside.
Service is of the highly attentive, first-name variety and is second to none. The
hotel's celebrated on-site restaurant, Market, is a winner even among those not staying
here. Drop by in summer and you'll even find an indoor farmers market of gourmet
goodies. There's also an excellent full-service spa.
VANCOUVER'S HISTORIC SLEEPOVERS
While shiny new towers are de rigueur among Vancouver hotels these days, the
city has a colorful heritage of older accommodations with bags of character.
Leading the pack is the ivy-shrouded Sylvia Hotel (
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)
, which was named
after the owner's daughter when it opened in 1912. By the late 1940s, the Sylvia
had become a glam city hangout and, in 1954, it became the home of Van-
couver's first cocktail bar. Errol Flynn propped up the bar here once or twice dur-
ing a prolonged bender just before dying of a heart attack in the city in October
1959. You can visit the bar today, although it's moved on from its cocktail-ex-
clusive heyday.
The Sylvia was designated as a local heritage building in 1975, but it's not the
only historic hotel in town. The Canadian Pacific Railway company built a string
of castle-like sleepovers across Canada around the turn of the 19th century for
first-class train passengers planning countrywide jaunts. The company's first
hotel in Vancouver was knocked down and replaced by a larger second version,
which was also superseded and eventually demolished in favour of the current
gargoyle-topped Hotel Vancouver (
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)
. This was opened in 1939 by King
George VI and Queen Elizabeth, who were on their own cross-Canada tour at the
time. Nip into the hotel's lobby and you'll see a copy of the lunch menu that
greeted the royals on their first day in the city.
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