After a chilly day yesterday where I headed across London and back again by bus, tube and train I thought we could do with some warming up. And as there's not been an entry in the Loo Series for a while, I'm combining the two with a tropical loo from Porto. It was on the last night of our week in Portugal and the anticipation of the cabbage plate was still real.
Our hotel was a bit out of town and it was nice to see a different part to Porto. We arrived at the hotel late and it was the type of hotel that in its heyday would have been fantastic and super swish. It was perfectly clean and adequate but let's just say its heyday was a good few years before our arrival, which was a shame.
We headed into the local town in search of a restaurant and stumbled upon what turned out to be the fanciest restaurant we'd eaten in the whole of our holiday. I'll come onto that, but first let's concentrate on the loos. In the Ladies I found myself sharing the space with this in bloom bird of paradise, beautiful isn't it?
The decor was relatively plain with painted walls and what I first thought was wooden floor tiles on the wall. On closer inspection I discovered the wooden tiles were actually ceramic tiles, and that gave me a whole new appreciation of them. As that seemed less odd than having flooring on the wall - and yes, they were pretty effective.
The sink was a snazzy affair too, all angles and I was rather taken with it. Above the sink was a forest of pink orchids and it amused me to spot myself in the mirror through them, and when I realised my flamingo t-shirt felt right at home I couldn't help but smile to myself.
I said before it was probably the fanciest restaurant we'd eaten at, and of course by the end of our holiday our dress sense had relaxed too. While my flamingo top and white jeans felt perfectly fine in the loo, in the restaurant, which was full of LBDs I felt decidedly underdressed.
Oh well.
And look at that pudding, it was that kind of fancy restaurant.
Not in a bad way though, the glassware was a hit, but the dubious starters I was on my guard.
Back to the loos. The shared lobby entrance to the loos was something special too, a chair, mirror, some pictures and plenty of clocks. And some more of those ceramic woodgrain tiles, this time on the floor.
So tropical loos, a flamingo top and plenty of time - that all makes for a great space, I'd say!
