Wide angle reviews, interviews and opinion
on music, travel and the arts by writer Graham Reid

Windows on Elsewhere

From every room in which Graham stays he takes a photograph out the window. Here are images of sometimes beautiful, but mostly mundane, views. And some odd interiors also. Further evidence that travel is not necessarily about charming scenery.

From Sydney backpacker hostel in The Rocks

From a family home on Samoa's Upolu island

Suva in Fiji from JJ's on the Park

A Polaroid from the 11th floor at the Comfort Inn in wonderful Oslo

Bonham Hotel, Edinburgh, Scotland

Looks unpromising but this is the Lindisfarne Hotel, England with Holy Island just 15 minutes down the road.

No window in the Skanstull underground backpackers hostel in Stockholm so this is the

Amman, Jordan. And overnight the carpark became a covered market

From our room in my sister and her husband's apartment in Kuala Lumpur

Hollywood backlots, Los Angles, California

The Hotel Carmel in Santa Monica, LA (Good hotel though)

That's Brussels out the window.

The old Seattle Hotel in Seattle near the markets and surrounded by coffee shops. Of course.

The Surf Motel on the harbour front in Victoria, Canada. Brilliant location, modest prices. It's recommended in Elsewhere.

The motel was Indian (sort of a mini-Taj Mahal) and the view over the television took in a nice side street just up the road from the excellent Herald Street Restaurant, in Victoria, Canada.

Something Fijiian as seen from a cabin in a boat which cruised around some outer islands.

The pool of the beautiful art-deco Argyle Hotel on Sunset Strip, Los Angeles. Numerous stars walked through the lobby and Ringo was interviewed poolside for the Beatles' Anthology doco series. I, on the other hand, spoke to Rob Zombie here.

A motel in Seattle, Washington.

The Park Hotel in San Francisco -- opposite a car park, naturally. The non-smoking floor reeked of stale smoke and you couldn't get a suitcase in the tiny lift. But it was certainly cheap.

Samoa in a cheap hotel just around the corner from Aggie Grey's.

From the back porch of our room at the beautiful Mendocino Hotel in Mendocino, California. See Snapshots From Elsewhere: On the Road Again.

Dusk at Cat Ba island in Halong Bay, Vietnam. Very beautiful and the bay is one of the great natural wonders of the world. Pity you can't hear the distant sound of karaoke for this one though.

Me in the foreground and Fukuoka, Japan behind. In a business hotel where you could stretch and touch both walls.

I have absolutely no idea -- but it looks upside down, doesn't it?

Little Japanese garden crammed between buildings in Nagoya.

From a small hotel in Granada, Spain near the Alhambra.

My son's former squat in Brixton, London.

Somewhere picturesque in Japan. Whatever happened to the elegance of Zen design?

View from the verandah of a beach bungalow on Ko Samet, Thailand. Overweight German women who arrived and lay in the sun turning lobster red not pictured.

Siena. The guy at the station slipped me the address of this tiny place and it was brilliant, even though it was up five flights and then a stepladder. At night I sat on the tiles outside and watched the dusk fall on the cathedral.

Miami Beach from the 14th floor

Unlovely Taichung in Taiwan.

Interior -- the whole interior -- of a typically overpriced and barely servicable hotel in London. Although we did leave a pair of shoes under the bed and they found them a week later. Says something about the maid though, doesn't it?

Charming street scene from the Charming Hotel, Naples. Right beneath the flight path.

View across the rooftops of Benevento in central Italy.

Trani on the east coast of central Italy. A charming and hospitable town, the jewel of the region.

Lecce in southern Italy by day. Night is better (see previous photo)

Lecce in southern Italy by night

Lonely Planet says of Potenza in south central Italy that the best way to see it is quickly and by night. That way you'll avoid the sight of some of the most brutal housing blocks you are ever likely to see. These are those blocks.

View of the Bay of Naples from one of the finest small luxury hotels in the world, the gorgeous and historic Grand Hotel Cocumella in Sorrento.

View from the Edgewater Inn in Seattle. The Beatles famously stayed here (they'll tell you that) -- but also so did Led Zeppelin and it was here that the fish/groupie incident took place (they won't tell you that).

Somewhere unpleasant in Japan, I think.

Not every view in Venice is beautiful or demands a photo.

From one of the Small Luxury Hotels of the World. This is Queenstown, New Zealand viewed from the balcony of Eichardt's Private Hotel which only has five suites. Nyah nyah nyah. (Sorry, but every time I think of it . . .)

A yogwan in Seoul, the first time. A year later I was in this district looking for a place to stay, saw a sign and went in and booked a room. I was lead to the same one I'd had previously. I'd just come in another entrance.

Same room and same yogwan in Seoul as the previous year, just looking in a slighty different direction! (This happened to me in Saigon as well. Homing instinct?)

Hanoi from the Lovely Planet Hotel. There's a story about my two trips to Vietnam (in the years before it became, hip, fashionable, and over-run by travelling chefs and motorbikes) in Postcards From Elsewhere.

St Maximin in the south of France, near Uzes in Provence.

San Francisco from the movie-themed Bijou Hotel

Fiji from a Sheraton at Denerau

Cheap backpackers in Samoa, just along the road from Aggie Grey's -- and about a quarter the price.

Aggie Grey's in Samoa.

The Alhambra at the top of the street in Granada, Spain.

Motel in Sacramento just a block down from the old Governor's mansion.

From Sylvia Beach Hotel, a fascinating literary hotel (no phones, readers and writers welcome) where every room is painted in homage to a particular author. In central Oregon. (See Snapshots: JFK, Einstein and Donny Osmond)

Motel in New Plymouth, New Zealand.

Another fale in Samoa, this time on the beautiful island of Savai'i which everyone deserves to see once in their life.

Hagley Park in the centre of Christchurch, New Zealand as seen from The George, about which Lonely Planet says

Another day, another hotel . . . and another view of the grandeur that is Rome. This was at Big Marco's place (See Snapshots From Elsewhere).

Dave and Ek's place on Ko Chang, Thailand. It was about this crowded every day.

Somewhere nice in Sydney, I was just in and out to interview the very nice Will Smith who was floatin' like a butterfly at the time.

Seoul again. Same hotel, different room two years later. Much the same view as before.

Seoul if I am not mistaken

A billiard table-cum-military base in the ocean. Guam, one of two places I never thought I'd go. (See Snapshots From Elsewhere: Lost in the Outposts of America)

A baby cried in the night right outside this window of my ryokan in Shin-Nakano, Tokyo. Or maybe it didn't. (See Snapshots From Elsewhere: Night Cries)

From a hotel in Guangzhou in China, where cameras in the hallways watched your every move. Sign in the garden read

From a brothel in Taipei. There's a photo of the red wallpaper, vibrating bed and surrounding mirrors somewhere else in Windows.

And here is the interior of my brothel in Taipei. A bath you could drown a horse in too. There is the story of this in Snapshots From Elsewhere.

The pleasure of symmetry. From the bathroom in the Hotel Marsala in Rome (near the main station so very convenient, and well priced)

View from the deck at a bungalow on Ko Samet, Thailand. The place seemed to be called Apaches and had a few American Indian carvings -- and a photo of the King of Thailand with Elvis. It looked genuine, the carvings didn't.

Pusan in South Korea through the mesh in a tiny yogwan

View from a fale in Samoa. It doesn't get much better than this, or cheaper.

The excellent Hotel Garibaldi in Naples. Terrific day market at the front door.

Luxury doesn't come much better than at Les Sources de Caudalie, a spa-cum-hotel on a vineyard outside Bordeaux.

The window in the room at the Hotel Scoti in Florence, which explains why the sitting room (see previous photo) is so much more appealing.

The Talbot-Heirs Guesthouse in Memphis was utterly luxurious, but this was the view from our balcony.

The view of the railhead might not be much but this was the magnificent Strater Hotel in Durango, Colorado. (See Travels in Elsewhere: Off to See America)

If memory serves me well this is from a motel in the hometown of REM . . . Athens, Georgia. Purdy ain't it?

I went here because it is mentioned in a Little Feat song and they had a museum of barbed wire. The museum was closed and Tucumcari in New Mexico -- especially this view of the truckers night-stop outside the window -- seemed pretty desolate.

That's the country music hall that rocked until the wee small hours across the parking lot of a motel in pretty, and pretty interesting, San Angelo, Texas.

Doesn't look like much, until you tried to open the window. Wasps' nest outside our room at David's place in Austin, Texas. There's a story about gay, Jewish-New Yorker David and his life in Texas in Snapshots From Elsewhere.

An accidental portrait: Megan coming through the door in our cheap motel in fascinating Fort Worth, birthplace of Ornette Coleman and home to cows and cowboys, and a magnificent arts centre (see Images From Elsewhere)

We drove all night through the rain to arrive here: Mansfield in northern Louisiana. And then the flooding started.

This place was almost washed away in Katrina and I can't say I would have been sorry to see it go. The most unfriendly town in Louisiana. I wrote about it Travels in Elsewhere. It is godawful Cameron and it stinks of shrimp and petroleum.

The beautiful back-porch of On The Bayou in Breaux Bridge, Louisiana, the heart of cajun country. Frogs and bayou instead of a lawn. There is a chapter about Breaux Bridge in Postcards From Elsewhere, one that was much favoured by reviewers.

Hotel in the French Quarter, New Orleans. Just around the corner from the famous Bonaparte's restaurant.

Scrub somewhere in Texas.

John F Kennedy Jnr and probably Bessie Smith also looked out this window at Rat's famous Riverside Hotel in Clarksdale, Mississippi. Every blues musician had stayed in this legendary place. See Postcards From Elsewhere.

Somewhere in Nowheresville, USA

The fresco in the sitting room of the Hotel Scoti in Florence. See A Long Way From Footscray in Snapshots.

So beautiful Bob Dylan named an album after it, Nashville skyline. For an amusement about this rundown hotel and its residents see Nashville Cats in Snapshots From Elsewhere.

Inside the Hotel Lyon Mulhouse in Paris, near L'Opera.

Somewhere in Louisiana. A spot-lit cross the size of a skyscraper loomed out of the night which we took as an omen so got off the dark highway and ended up here. Wherever

Spanish moss so this must be beautiful Savannah, Georgia.

View of the balcony above the Tiki Bar at Fawlty Towers in Cocoa Beach, Florida near Cape Canaveral. There is a photo of the commanding and garish Fawlty Towers in Images from Elsewhere.

Low rent motel in northern Florida near Boca Raton which despite it's name (mouth of the rat) boasted magnificent luxury homes.

Miami Beach on Memorial weekend when 200,000 hip-hoppers arrived to attend a convention-cum-party. Most of which seemed to happen right outside our place. Brilliant. See Part Seven of Off To See America in Travels in Elsewhere.

Auckland city as seen from a cabin on the Pacific Sky cruise liner.

View from the room in the Paeroa Hotel, New Zealand. See Travels in Elsewhere.

Megan in our room at the Sylvia Beach Hotel in Oregon. Each room is decorated in homage to an author, this was the Alice Walker room. We declined the Dr Seuss suite, it was terrifyingly cheerful.

View across the rooftops from Amanda's beautiful place in San Maximin in the south of France. There is Snapshot about the marvellous Amanda called, appropriately, The Love of Life.

From a small hotel in Venice. There are some Venice stories in Snapshots From Elsewhere.

From the recommended Hotel Carmel in Santa Monica, California just minutes away from the pier and the mall. Other rooms have better views but sometimes you just take what you get. We got the air-con.

From a motel in Seattle just opposite a great Tower Records and down the road from the Experience Music Project (rock'n'roll museum), the Tower and the sci-fi museum.

The motel was Indian (sort of a mini-Taj Mahal) and the view over the television took in a nice side street just up the road from the excellent Herald Cafe restaurant, in Victoria, Canada

The Timber Cove Inn on a spectacular headland on the Sonoma Coast, northern California. Cannot tell a lie, we didn't stay here. The manageress said, Take the keys, have a look at some of the rooms. We did and this is what we saw.

Sea in one direction, snow-capped Southern Alps in the other. At the luxurious Hapuku Lodge, near Kaikoura on the east coast of the South Island, New Zealand. Quite a view from the shower. The lounge one was even better.

From -- and this is absolutely true -- Fawlty Towers in Cocoa Beach, Florida. Note the subtle colours used on Ron Jon's surf shop next door. This was a migraine every morning.

Can't resist this, the guest lounge at the famous Eke (see following pix).

Vancouver by night from the 21st floor of the plush Pacific Palisades Hotel on Robson.

Late afternoon looking out from Tigh-Na-Mara Seaside Spa and Resort (it had a grotto pool!) near Parksville on Vancouver Island.

For every fire-trap like the Formosa Hostel in Taipei (see elsewhere in these images) there is a West Coast Wilderness Lodge near tiny Egmont on the Sunshine Coast, BC, Canada. Yes, this really was the view from my window.

Vancouver from the 21st floor of the plush Pacific Palisades Hotel on Robson.

In Bordeaux, heart of the beautiful wine country, of course. How could you mistake it for anywhere else?

Picturesque Provence in the south of France. Yet another medieval town somewhere just around the corner.

Paris, near L'Opera. The very comfortable Hotel Lyon Mulhouse.

At Cable Bay in Northland, New Zealand. This taken out the sliding door after two days of torrential rain and a seven hour power cut. Couldn't go out, couldn't eat (all restaurants closed), read by the light of our cellphones. Nice place though.

From the eccentric and hilariously named Formerly The Blackball Hilton, so named because it was once The Blackball Hilton until the lawyers' letter arrived. In the coal mining town of Blackball in New Zealand's South Island.

Lake Okanagan from my room at the Lake Okanagan Resort, on the western shore and 19 kilometers around the lake from Kelowna.

Vancouver from some cheap place on Robson where the smell of the Chinese restaurants below wafted into the lift and gave you an appetite.

Whistler from the Summit Lodge.

Nelson, New Zealand on a damp day from a homely b'n'b behind the cathedral.

Westport in New Zealand's South Island. Very literal those early pioneers: there is Northland and Southland, the North and South Island, Westport on the West Coast, the East Coast . . .

Lake Brunner in New Zealand's South Island as the sun burns off the mist over the lake. From Lake Brunner Lodge, a century old luxury hotel with a view like the Scottish Highlands, cattle in the foreground.

Rarotonga, a very orderly place obviously.

Fox Studios in Los Angeles from the hotel next door. I said

Marine Parade, Napier, New Zealand. This is the town famous for its Art Deco architecture (built after the 1931 earthquake) but we stayed in strikingly modernist Te Pania Hotel.

The West Coast of New Zealand's South Island from the Historic Empire Hotel in Ross, one of the friendliest pubs it has ever been my good fortune to be in. Huge old place, and we were the only two guests. Great pub.

Sunset near Haast in the South Island, New Zealand. Couldn't sleep, in the morning was told a woman was murdered here 40 years before and her body left under the bridge across the road. Not recommended in Elsewhere.

The pastel shades of beautiful Trani on the east coast of Italy about opposite Naples. Much recommended in Elsewhere unlike . . . (See following window)

From the newly opened Franz Joseph Glacier Country Retreat in New Zealand's South Island, a classy up-market place which feels homely and a hundred years old already. Got a good venison recipe from the chef (see Recipes From Elsewhere)

The carpark across from the rather swanky Majestic Roof Garden Hotel, Adelaide, South Australia. Roof garden isn't much cop though, just a few tables and chairs -- and views of carparks.

Another room at the Majestic in Adelaide -- and another carpark.

View through the fly-screen at the Blinman Hotel in remote Blinman, South Australia. Population, 15 in Blinman itself, 22 in the greater Blinman area according to the publican Tony.

At the 61,000 hectare Arkaroola Wildlife Sanctuary in the Flinders Ranges north of Adelaide, South Australia. Founded by the remarkable geologist, zoologist, surveyer, archeologist, businessman and all-round genius Reg Sprigg.

From a room at the back of the Birdsville Hotel in southern Queensland, Australia. Find it on the map and look for the nearest city. It's remote all right.

At Lac Le Jeune in British Columbia, Canada. There was a wedding at the small lodge and they asked if I would mind having my dinner by myself in my room. This is the view I had to endure.

From the Bligh Court motel, Norfolk Island

From my small but comfortable hut at Waipari, a 10,000 acre piece of deer-filled bush south of Lake Taupo in New Zealand. Beautiful.

Which is why they call it Surfers Paradise . . .

From the 29th floor on the Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia

In the oil-rich Sultanate of Brunei. The beautiful main mosque is just down the road. That is worth a photo, this view from my rest house probably not.

The Menara KL (Telecom Tower) in Kuala Lumpur through a humidity soaked window from about the 16th floor of the ritzy Pacific Regency Hotel.

No window in the dorm attached to the longhut of the Iban people up the Lemenak River, near where Sarawak borders with Indonesian Borneo. But this is the view from the front of the

From the Hotel Equatorial in Melaka, west coast of Peninsula Malaysia, and the school which started the new day at 6.45 with what sounded like new age disco music blaring through the playground speakers.

From the very cheap Sama Sama Guest House in Melaka, Malaysia. At 4.45am calls to prayer started from the nearby mosque, then the Chinese temple went off, dogs barked, and at 6am this old man came out hoicking and spitting.

View to the beach from the luxurious Nexus Resort Karambunai about 20 minutes north of Kota Kinabalu in Sabah.

View of the river in Kuching, the main city -- and a very pleasant one -- in Sarawak.

This is 8am at the Birdsville Hotel in the Australian Outback, the most remote pub in the world apparently. It was 30 degrees just after dawn -- and then just got hotter. Once it's over 40, a degree or three doesn't much difference.

A view in one direction outside the Colonial on Norfolk Island. But see also the following . . .

A somewhat more flattering -- and honest -- view outside the Colonial on Norfolk Island

Kuala Lumpur -- with a flying saucer? -- at dusk

Early morning in Vancouver, Canada

Angsana Restort and Spa (see previous pix) looking the other way.

From the Angsana Resort and Spa, Great Barrier Reef at Palm Cove in tropical North Queensland. The beach is just over there behind the spa.

Toilet window in the unsurprisingly cheap rest house in Bandar Seri Begawan, the capital of oil-rich Brunei.

Dawn over Cairns, from the ninth floor of the newly renovated Cairns Hilton. Much recommended in Elsewhere (see next pix)

View of the tropical rainforest from a cabin at Coconut Beach Rainforest Lodge, Cape Tribulation in north Queensland, Australia.

View from the lounge in the premier suite of the Cairns Hilton in Queensland, Australia. You could play tennis in this lounge -- and the bedroom was much the same size. Two bathrooms . . . that I found anyway.

From a hotel window in Kuching, Sarawak. Nice town, shame about this view, perhaps? As the river's edge gets more built up I guess visitors may see more

John Nott who built Rose Gums Wilderness Retreat in a private slice of tropical rainforest in the Atherton Tablelands, Australia said you could see 64 species of birds from this deck by breakfast. I think he was two out.

The central pool from a second floor room (with private spa) at Peppers Beach Club in Port Douglas, northern Queensland, Australia. That man didn't move for 20 minutes. I know, I didn't move from my lounger while watching him.

Interior of my room in Coconut Beach Rainforest Lodge at Cape Tribulation in northern Queensland, Australia. The lodge is located in one of the world's oldest rainforests and each private cabin looks out in dense trees but are just minutes from the beach.

From a rear room at Rydges Sabaya in Port Douglas, Tropical North Queensland, Australia.

View from an airport motel in Honolulu, Hawaii

Night view from an airport hotel in Honolulu in the Hawaiian Islands

A slightly more flattering view from the eighth floor of the Wyland Waikiki in Hawaii. This is side on down the short balcony, a direct view across the road was to the wall of windows and the carpark of another hotel. (See elsewhere in these Windows pages

From the eighth floor of the Wyland Waikiki on Oahu in the Hawaiian Island, two blocks from the beach. Namesake Wyland famously paints pictures of whales and dolphins. His godawful stuff is all through the hotel. This view is better.

At the very beautiful Kiahuna Plantation Resort on the island of Kaua'i in the Hawaiian Island chain. Superb restaurant in the old plantation house, and even better cocktails. The beach is just at the base of those palms.

Florence in the rain, just metres away from the Uffizi which was around the corner. Where it remained untroubled by me until the torrential rain ceased.

Saigon in 1997. By coincidence I ended up in same hotel as two year's previous -- and at that time a thriving market and suburb were on this flattened wasteland. It is now high-rises and hotels.

Room with a view -- in central Sydney, Australia

Somewhere in central Tokyo.

From a beachfront bungalow on the most south-eastern tip of Ko Samet. Deserted almost every day.

The whispering pines at Manly, Sydney in Australia.

And that would be midtown Manhattan out the window which you couldn't open so had to suffer an air-con jammed on

From a small hotel in Fukuoka in southern Japan.

Pleasant view of a container ship in Auckland outside the porthole of a P&O cruise ship.

Ah, the faded beauty of that dowager they call Venice. Little wonder the poets get lyrical.

Siena, taken from the precarious tiles of the roof outside a room that was three floors up, then a climb, then a ladder. A struggle with a suitcase -- but the view at dusk was worth it.

Twice in a fortnight I stayed in the same hotel (but different rooms) in Sydney, Australia -- so got to see this hole in the ground from a couple of angles and altitudes. They filled it in -- with a building just like the one centre-right.

From the famous Chelsea Hotel in New York. The bedlamps didn't work, nor did the taps in the bath, and the room was pretty ho-hum. But it was the Chelsea and so . . . (See Travel Stories for more and my encounter with the manager)

Tokyo stretching way out through the smog to somewhere a very long way in the distance -- and low-rise all the way, when it isn't high-rise.

The next-door neighbours' place in Tokyo.

Somewhere in Florida north of Miami Beach. We were the only occupants in this scrupulously clean motel.

On the north Californian coast at Cambria, a slight detour down Moonstone Beach Drive to the lovely FogCatcher Inn. Which is much nicer than this carpark view suggests.

Somewhere in south east Asia. Or Japan. Or Taiwan.

Three flights up in Brussels, Belgium. Near the European Union district.

Seattle taken from the famous Edgewater Inn where, if you had a room in the seaward side, you used to be able to fish out of the window, bring your catch back to your groupie . . . (Zappa and Led Zepp fans will get the reference)

Singapore harbour from the skyrise opposite Raffles

A fale on Savaii, one the islands of Western Samoa. The beach is a metre and half to the right. White sand, warm clear sea . . .

The window in my small hotel in Amsterdam was painted out, so this is from the street front. Very nice place indeed -- except little light came into the room.

Possibly Dalat in Vietnam.

The Golden Triangle where Myanmar, Laos and Thailand rub shoulders. Twenty minutes up the river is China. There is a chapter about this place in Postcards From Elsewhere

Somewhere in Georgia.

From a Quality Inn (or something similar) in Lubbock, Texas.

The rooftop of the Monte Vista Hotel in Arizona, which has a ghost or two, and where some interior scenes of Casablanca were shot. See Travels in Elsewhere

And that would be Wellington Harbour, just after dawn.

From Pukehina Beach in New Zealand just as the season changed to autumn

From the 12th floor of the handsome Grand Hyatt in Seoul, South Korea looking towards the Han River.

This is cheating a little because my view from the Grand Hyatt in Seoul (see previous photo) was actually the other way. But from the lift lobby outside my door you got this view of the Seoul Tower.

This is life in a leaky building in Auckland.

From a luxury hotel in New Zealand's South Island near Fox Glacier

The luxurious and exclusive (four suites only) Takatu Lodge and Vineyard near Matakana, just north of Auckland NZ. Much recommended in Elsewhere

Takatu Lodge and Vineyard north of Auckland, NZ

The amphitheatre layout of the Darwin Central Hotel, North Australia

Through the fly-screen in the Australian Outback south west of Alice Springs

Leigh Sawmill north of Auckland, NZ

From my door in the Darwin Central Hotel at the top end of Australia.

At the Lost Camel Hotel, Yalara near Uluru (Ayers Rock) in central Australia

Darwin out the window

View from my doorway at Glen Helen west of Alice Springs

Sydney Harbour is just beyond this nominally Art Deco monstrosity

Sydney, Australia

At Glen Helen far west of Alice Springs, Outback Australia

The necessary pool and even more necessary canopy over it. Alice Springs.

Australia's Gold Coast from 34 floors up

From the Mantra Mooloolaba Beach, Sunshine Coast, Australia

From an apartment hotel in the San Telmo area of Buenos Aires

Dawn at Eumarella Shores, a bush retreat at Lake Weyba near Noosa, Australia

Dusk at Whispering Valley Retreat, Sunshine Coast Hinterland, Australia

Whispering Valley Retreat in the forest near Maleny, Sunshine Coast Hinterland, Australia

Montpellier Boutique Resort, Noosa, Australia

Novotel Twin Waters Resort at Mudjimba Beach, Australia's Sunshine Coast

The ocean at Mooloolaba on Australia's Sunshine Coast. Looks like the U2 cover.

Novotel Twin Waters Resort, Mudjimba Beach, Australia's Sunshine Coast

The only place with a pool in San Telmo, Buenos Aires? A necessary gem.

The neighbours opposite in San Telmo, Buenos Aires

Poolside geometry on the Gold Coast, Australia

An apartment on Australia's Gold Coast

Through the bathroom window of a rental house in San Telmo, Buenos Aires

Liverpool's Albert Docks area

At the expensive but beautiful Wharekauhau Country Estate in the Wairarapa district. South Island of New Zealand just across the strait.

South East London

Liverpool, taken from the hard Day's Night Hotel

Edinburgh Scotland near Surgeon's Hall

South East London

Glasgow on a summer's evening

From our door at the Clacaigh Inn, the pass of Glencoe, Scotland

Bushmills Inn, Northern Ireland.

Inside the Hard Day's Night Hotel, Liverpool

Hong Kong from the 14th floor of the Peninsula Hotel

The glamour of Paris, France

Bern, Switzerland

Dublin's Liffey River.

Cook Strait in New Zealand from Wharekauhau Estate

Belfast, Northern Ireland

Sydney, late afternoon from the Grace Hotel.

Pelican Waters. Caloundra, Australia

Keyhole window at Clink 78 hostel, London. A former court and jail

Hotel at Gatwick, England

Riad in Marrakech

Riad in Essaouira, Morocco

From the window of Kester House in the village of Sedlescombe in south east England. Utterly delightful 16th century home

Skanstulls Hostel, Stockholm. A windowless room (for two weeks) so this is the feature wall.

No window in Skanstulls Hostel, Stockholm. This is complete interior view.

The attractive view from the Numancia Hostel, about five floors up in Madrid. Good place except for ciggy smoke at night from the staff

Spending eight hours sleeping in the comfortable Emirates lounge at Melbourne airport qualifies as a room I stayed in! Room with a view.

Blue sky in Dubai

The view out the window in Amman, Jordan changed every time I looked so here is one of them, taken on arrival the first night. Look around for others of the

Overnight things changed out the window in Amman, Jordan so check out the other photos to see what I mean

This qualifies because I slept here for six hours between arriving from KL and departing for NZ

The night market moved in whole we were out in Amman, Jordan and this was the new view out the window

From my sister's 14th floor apartment in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

From a motel in New Plymouth, New Zealand at dawn, March 2014, when a tropical cyclone was expected to hit. Didn't.

Apartments opposite the boutique 1888 Hotel in Sydney

The quiet estate at Bells of Killcare north of Sydney, Australia

View from the appropriately named The Anchorage, Corlette, two hours north of Sydney

The harbour at Newcastle, NSW from the Crowne Plaza

The Plymouth International in New Plymouth, Taranaki, New Zealand.

Morning in Wellington, New Zealand

From a hotel in Wellington, New Zealand

From 26 floors up at the Crowne Plaza Metropole, Melbourne, Australia

3am in Melbourne, Australia

Room reflections in Melbourne, Australia

Dawn from EbbTide B&B, Sandspit, North Auckland, New Zealand

Dubai airport, deserted at 2pm. I spent 24 hours here

Dawn on the island of Lidingo, Stockholm, Sweden

Stockholm, Sweden

Stockholm, Sweden

At the WakeUpCopenhagen Hotel, Copenhagen, Denmark

From the Tai Hoe Hotel, Little India, Singapore

Spent midnight to 8am sleeping in deserted Brisbane aiport

View from our suite (occupied by Charles and Camilla previously) at Otahuna Lodge near Christchurch, New Zealand

From a Christchurch self-service apartment

Looking up outside our room in Oslo. Comfort indeed

From a hotel in New Plymouth, New Zealand

From the seventh floor, historic Grace Hotel, Sydney, Australia

Reflecting on Stuart and Yvonne's garden, Bowral south of Sydney, Australia

Bedroom window on Waiheke, an island near Auckland, New Zealand (wild rabbits not pictured)

Aurora on George, Dunedin, New Zealand

From a bach (crib) Surat Bay, Otago, New Zealand

Foveaux Strait, bottom of New Zealand's South Island at Bluff

The Bridge Hotel, Warkworth, New Zealand (nice place actually)

Out the door, Bridge Hotel, Warkworth, New Zealand

Thames, New Zealand

Rees Hotel, Queenstown, New Zealand

Visby on Gotland in the Baltic

Brighton, England

Bristol, England

Travelodge, Bristol, England

From the historic Fleece in Cirencester, England

In striking distance of extraordinary Lindisfarne/Holy Island 20 minutes away, but the Lindisfarne Hotel was warm, welcoming and the food was good. This window photo from our comfortable room does them a disservice.

At North Berwick, Scotland

From an eccentric b'n'b in Inverness, Scotland

Ullapool, northern Scotland

Glentower Hotel, Fort William, Scotland

From the huge, eccentric and excellent Dreadnought Hotel, Callander, Scotland

Falkirk, Scotland

Hotel at Heathrow Airport, London

10th floor apartment, Tampines district, Singapore

Hamerby district, Stockholm, Sweden

Darwin's Townhouse in Shrewsbury which was much more beautiful than this image shows (although the pressure in the shower was typically-Englishly hopeless)

From the godawful but usefully central hotel The Tune, in Liverpool. Two lifts to get to this. Christ you know it ain't easy!

Historic and comfortable Gray Harlings Hotel near Montrose, Scotland

On top-toes at a wonderful hotel in York, England. The Elmbank Hotel

From Cable Bay Views on Waiheke, an island east of Auckland, New Zealand

Wellington, New Zealand from six floors up

Dawn from the 4th floor, Canmore Hotel, Christchurch, New Zealand

Christchurch, South Island, New Zealand

Arthur's Pass Wilderness Lodge, South Island, New Zealand