On April Fool's Day, even the most experienced traveller can experience some difficulties separating the real news from the simply aspirational. Yes, Emirates, we love your idea of a swimming pool inside an airplane.
But the award for the best story that we thought was an April Fool's joke, but really wasn't, is a piece in the U.K.'s Daily Express about a new luxury hotel built inside a former crane.
The massive Crane Hotel Faralda in Harlingen, located near Amsterdam, features three luxury suites overlooking the city's bustling waterfront. The new hotel joins a sister property which opened in Amsterdam about three years ago.
The Amsterdam property, a self-professed "former piece of crap," was built in a repurposed port crane to include three gorgeous five-star suites with incredible views and the new property follows suit. At both properties, however, the views aren't just amazing due to the unobstructed panoramas. They are rendered even more remarkable through the fac that the crane turns with the wind, so each bedroom features an ever-changing, rotating vista.
If a spinning room based on the caprice of the wind isn't enough adventure for you, there's also an open-air hot tub at the very top of the crane, nearly 45 stories in the air. (To give you a frame of reference, that's nearly the same height as the Aria Resort & Casino in Las Vegas.)
While we might marvel over the concept of repurposing industrial equipment for the sake of accommodation, apparently in Europe this concept isn't quite so unusual.
The Crane Hotel Faralda is actually the second crane hotel in Harlingen. Also available is the iconic one-bedroom Havenkraan van Harlingen (Harlingen Harbor Crane), which features one room for two people. Here, the room is located "just" four stories (45 feet) above the ground. For more adventure, the organization operating Havenkraan van Harlingen also operates accommodations in a repurposed lighthouse and lifeboat.
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