Sylvia Beach Hotel

This is one of my all-time favorite places to stay - though we're not staying there this trip (no dogs allowed). The Sylvia Beach Hotel, a five-story hulk of a building on a cliff overlooking the beach at Newport (Oregon) has been in its current incarnation for 27 years. When Goody Cable and Sally Ford (don't they sound like 17th century witches??) bought it, it was a dilapidated former "flop house" with much needed TLC. They renovated it and turned it into one of the most popular destination spots on the west coast.

It's truly a book-lover's paradise. Each room is dedicated to and decorated in the style of a particular author. There's a Mark Twain room, one for Agatha Christie, Shakespeare, Emily Dickinson, Alice Walker, Dr. Seuss, Virginia Wolff, a new JK Rowling room, one for Tolkein, and more. There used to be an Edgar Alan Poe room complete with a pendulum over the bed! I've stayed in a number of these rooms over the years. The atmosphere is like nothing you'll ever find anywhere else.

The hotel also has an exquisite library on the top floor and a restaurant - the Tables of Content - on the bottom. The food is fantastic and served family style -- even if you don't know anyone there when you arrive, by the time you leave you will have made friends at dinner or breakfast, or in the library.

It's hard to get a good shot of the hotel unless you're on the beach, and I can't get on the beach these days. I did manage to find a couple of vantage points, one quite by accident , where I could get a relatively unobstructed view. The sculpture you see in front of the hotel is the one I blipped yesterday. The yellow building is the visual arts center.

Here's a little history about the building with photos of some of the rooms. And a few more of my shots on Flickr.

Adverb/Adjective challenge: ACCIDENTAL