Rooms without a view

Every time I travel and stay in a hotel, I ask for a room with a pleasant view. This could be regarded as compensation for my early years in a Warsaw apartment that looked out on the ugliest church in the world (in a terrifying and gothic sort of way), adjacent to a highly trafficked tram stop; or for the years after, when our New York bedroom looked out on the back of the YMCA, where men routinely, unabashedly sat by their windows and stared right at our apartment. Creepy.

A good view should not be a hotel priority and I chalk up my request as belonging to the “dumb things I like in life.” After all, you come back late at night, it’s dark, you close the curtains, turn on CNN or check your email, and go to sleep. Still, unless there’s a price issue, I ask for the view.


So why do I eat with some frequency in places that offer at best a parking lot for your viewing pleasure? Or a gas station? Or a ridiculously busy intersection? Or –as in today’s lunch place—all of the above (did someone say Sunprint Café? Damn, you’re smart!). Yes, of course, a view can be sacrificed for the company, the food, or even (third on the list) the ambience of the interior. But I long for it anyway: a place to eat and talk and people-watch, with potted bay leaf trees or baskets of flowers at the entrance and maybe some winding little street or dirt road just outside, and let’s go for broke here: a boy pedalling an old bike, with a baguette sticking out of his basket, heading for an alley lined with tall cypress trees. Yes, totally idyllic—such stuff as dreams are made of.

Ah well, if something should be sacrificed, I suppose it has to be the view. Even a boy pedalling down a cypress lane isn’t going to overcome ratty food or tiresome company. Sitting through a meal where after ten minutes you wonder if it would be transparent to play the “sick dog at home” card (and after five more minutes you no longer care if it’s polite, you play it anyway), as you stare miserably at your plate of buffalo stew can ruin a day.