Britain, Brussels, Bruges and back. Part 1: Tonally correct

I've been a bit quiet on the blogging front recently; yeah, yeah been so busy dahling, not a second to spare and all that. But I plan to make up for that and update you on some of the highlights so far.

I was lucky enough to start my year with a trip to mainly Brussels and a bit of Bruges. So I'm a designer, going to Brussels for multiple nights; where else would I stay but the Pantone Hotel itself!

Got all fired up on the palette front and in my head started conjuring up all manner of overwhelmingly colourful corridors and room based optical feasts enough make Willy Wonka's factory feel positively dowdy.

However, in reality, would anyone really expect anything other than achingly understated areas nestling alongside pools of striking colour? This was the reality and it's great. Really great.

 

Brussels itself is packed fairly densely with great slabs of buildings, put together with the Duplo of the architectural world. Alongside these monstrous buildings the Pantone Hotel merely hints at it's intentions with a few panes of colour tinted glass and tantalising glimpses of the vibrant ball chairs.
 
The foyer area doubles or rather triples as a reception, dining area and shop sporting an array of pantone merchandise. Thought going round my head: this isn't just an 'ordinary' notebook/mug, this is a pantone notebook/mug. This is the only way to explain the markup.

Check in was as easy as turning on your mac and with that we were off to our room via what can only be described as the lift in which you remember what it was like to be two years old again.

A spectrum of colour before my eyes and we were up on the sixth floor. This was the red floor, each floor is a different part of the spectrum and must certainly contribute to the revisit factor.

 

After a standard designer nod of appreciation at the selected pantone shades for our room, we spent a moment translating the accompanying poem (in french) inspired by 1795c while our feet noted the luxuriously deep piled carpet in, I believe, 546c.


Then we took in the rest of the room, en suite and balcony area. Didn't go out on the balcony as it was very much January and freezing, with rain and howling winds for added wilderness effect, but I bet in summer the outside area is lovely.

All the rooms have a huge canvas print photograph by Belgian photographer Victor Levy which are urban architectural close ups. Bold and strong, they really came alive when we found the switch that activated the backlight. Cue various photo-interaction moments and many pictures of our own!

You can order drinks at the reception desk a bit like not-in-room-service, which we did on the first night there as we didn't know where or which other places were open late in the area. Sat reading books from the communal book area and was beginning to get lost in a copy of Stephen Fry's The Liar when the low volume background music switched from Tainted Love to a soft, sultry female vocalist of an unknown nature singing YMCA. I was not ready for that level of boundary challenging so we retired to our room.

Our stay was great and far too short. The hotel is perfectly positioned for walking into the centre of Brussels, the staff were calm and reliable (particularly the guys who helped us when we had an issue with the balcony door) and I'd definitely recommend that you book yourself in for a visit.