No. 5 Tinkle: Chamber 370 at Hotel Gault Montreal
For once, I’m glad I took the advice of the New York Times travel section. We booked our first trip to Hotel Gault in Old Montreal in December 2003. The place had just opened, and the NY Times gave it an orgiastic review.
That wasn’t why we went.
We spent Christmas 2003 in Chamber 370 because the hotel won several design awards that MTM the Architect recognized as being Worthy of His Patronage. Plus, he missed freezing his tuckus off during Wisconsin winters. A pilgrimage to blowing snow and freezing my Southern nostrils shut would be a good indicator of whether I would make a suitable spouse.
Fluffy flecks of white blew around the window of the plane as we landed on a charcoal grey day. Our cab driver told us in Franglais that more snow was anticipated for that evening as he slid to a stop in front of a granite building on a side street. Hotel Gault. We had arrived.
I didn’t know how to walk in anything wintry, so I slipped and slid from the car to the door with the help of the valet. MTM’s face lit up when we walked into a sparse dreamworld of lobby design. Weird furniture. Strange art. IKEA glasses. Stainless steel.
I can’t WAIT to see the room!!!!! a giddy MTM squealed as we waited for the elevator.
I hope we have a real bed, not one of those hard-as-a-brick modernist/minimalist numbers I harrumphed to myself.
The door to Chamber 370 yawned open to reveal more stark furnishings: a bed, a couple of night tables with those weird stainless steel architect-y lamps on them, a big built in desk/closet, more crazy chairs and a microscopic table.
There’s no hope for the bathroom I cried, as I heaved back a floor-to-ceiling sliding door to inspect my throne for almost a week. Would it be stark? Sparse? Would there even BE one?
I gasped as I stared at the Inner Sanctum of Urinary Awesomeness. A gigantic sink with a massive shelf to hold all my products. Fluffy robes and towels. A shower stall for two with water pressure that was perfection. A hidden compartment for the toilet. A bathtub where I spent part of one whole day soaking, adding more hot water when needed to maintain my shriveled, happy state. And, the floor was heated. No sitting on the toilet with frozen tootsies because it was minus 20 outside.
We’ve spent nine Christmases in that bathroom. This year, we plan to make it ten.
This post is part of the series My Top 10 Tinkles. If this is your first visit to this urinary extravaganza, please click here to start the series at the beginning. Thank you for reading my blog, for sharing it, and for spending time here.
I’ve run out of comments about tinkleworld Andra, but they are ace!
What is your favorite loo of all time, Jim?
My Gran’s in Kerry, Ireland – she didn’t have one – just a hill overlooking the Atlantic Ocean!
Well, that had to be a spectacular experience every time, Jim.
The bathroom does sound nice for sure. I am sure that Katy and I could use several hours in one of those bubble bath tubs as well. LOL
I only get to have one of those at a hotel now, James. Our place doesn’t have much of a tub.
You and Katy should definitely treat yourselves.
Back in 2002 Katy and I got a room with a hot tub in it up in Greenville SC. I was working as an IT contractor for Ahold USA. Katy and the kids came to visit me at the hotel. The kids stayed in my room and Katy and I got our own room with the tub. I filled the tub with hot water and the entire contents of the bubble bath stuff. I had no idea that it was a concentrated mixture. We had bubble in the entire bathroom. LOL We had so much fun.
The Bed! The Bed! You must tell about the bed and where one of them would up.
This photo of Hotel Gault is courtesy of TripAdvisor
I want the room with the purple accents!
I believe that photo is actually from the room we always stay in. And, yes, we ended up buying a bed from that hotel. The mattress is the bed to end all beds. But, this series is about toilets.
You are only at number five and I don’t know how you surpass “Inner Sanctum of Urinary Awesomeness”. Bill and Ted would be so proud. Excellent.
If I am writing at the level of Bill and Ted then I feel most excellent indeed.
You need this commemorative piece! http://www.rubylane.com/item/739066-5516/Jonette-Jewelry-Co-Signed-JJ
It would be SO FUNNY to wear that to Rotary, Karen, and watch the men try not to stare at it. Hehehe.
Quite the tribute! The tub sounds awesome. I do remember your tribute to their beds/mattresses. As Lou said, you’ll have to reference that one for all the readers who have not read that song of adoration!
Here’s that post, Cheryl. Now everyone will be humming or cursing Celine Dion all afternoon.
http://andrawatkins.com/2010/08/03/have-you-ever-been-in-love-with-a-mattress/
Even your old posts (and the attendant comments) are too funny! I am not overly fond of that particular singer either (but folks looked askance if I said so). Best mattress I EVER had was a waterbed w/baffles and heat! NEVER had a backache . . . wish I still owned it.
Do they still make it, Karen?
Sounds perfect
I must put it on my list!
It is one of my favorite hotels in the world, Kate, and Montreal is a lovely place to visit.
Nothing like a great bathtub to make one truly happy. Soaking in the tub is such a great way to honor out aquatic ancestry and give the not to our being still mostly composed of water.
It is so relaxing. I miss having a soaking tub.
You don’t have a tub in the new place? They would have ruled it right off my list!
I have one, but it is very small. No soaking.
Which then explains why you have been spending so much time in hotel rooms recently.
I remember staying in a hotel once and couldn’t get out of the bath… it was far too big! I don’t remember the other elements of the room though, so it wasn’t as awesome as the room in Chamber 370 (that, by the way Andra, reminds me of a kind of horror / science fiction setting!
)
Especially if I spelled it the French way – Chambre 370. That would be an excellent horror/science fiction title, wouldn’t it?
Oh lovely! Montreal is so beautiful. Though my lodgings there have never been so swank.
We can only afford it in December, and some years, we go when we can’t. You’re lucky to live so close to it.
I haven’t been since college, when I REALLY lived close, and we crashed with friends of friends, or just didn’t sleep and drove south the next day.
I’ve been thinking about taking a little jaunt to Montreal this fall… I’ll have to remember that hotel!
It is an amazing place to stay, Annabelle. Happy to send along our other recs for visiting there. A Belgian french fry place is on the docket, and I eat every single one of them when I visit – more than what came with your brunch the other day.
“Inner Sanctum of Urinary Awesomeness”–brilliant! I’m glad to reach the end of the post and have you mention that this is your Christmas go-to destination. I thought this was where you’d been last year, and I’m glad to have a little history on your love for it! You are so great with your personal photographs. I love each one! This is a favorite, Andra! D
I’m still shaking my head, Debra, that I put a photo of me in the bathtub on the internet.
We love this place. We’re going back again this year to make the decade, and we’ll decide what to do for the next decade from there. It is well worth a visit, whatever time of year one goes to Montreal.
ISUA rating? Four stars? Five stars?
Out of how many stars, Bill? We need to be precise. I give it an ISUA rating of five out of five stars, if that is your scale.
(And, I’m still laughing that you want an Inner Sanctum of Urinary Awesomeness rating system.)
I’m giving the photo ✩✩✩✩✩!!!
They always say to leave much to the imagination…….