The Hotel at the Salt Lakes of Florence
Introduction
Note, this isn't a standard hotel of the type that I normally review, so I've not ranked it in quite the same way.
I'm a little late to the party here in covering this destination as there have been already been excellent articles on The Salt Lakes of Florence by Inara Pey, Camille Milos and others.
But, the discovery that it includes a small hotel, has given me an excuse to do a short post about it.
This is the recreation of a RL place, not Florence, Italy of course, but instead of the tidal salt marshes of Salin d’Aigues-Mortes in France.
Despite being free, the hotel is better designed and kitted out than many paid for places I've seen, and the overall location makes for an excellent date and / or photo spot.
Overall look and feel
I've never been to Salin d’Aigues-Mortes, but having had a look at photos online, owner Gnaaah Xeltentat and designer Iska Poppies have done a great job of recreating the actual RL place - and as I've mentioned in previous posts, building an SL model of somewhere in RL is I think challenging given prim and space constraints.
The destination includes salt flats, a railway line cutting through the middle, a beach and various hang-out / cuddle spots. The Flickr group will give you a good idea.
The hotel however is a two storey structure with a restaurant and reception area at the bottom and a room at the top. Surrounding the hotel there's also a small pool and a cafe.
It actually reminded me a lot of holiday brochures I used to see advertising private villas in Tuscany or the Provence, which got me thinking again that there is I think a market for exclusive, curated vacation experiences in SL - more on that later.
Overall it's beautifully done and if you haven't been, you definitely should go.
The rooms
There is only one room, which is above the main hotel reception and restaurant. This consists of a good sized bedroom and en suite bathroom.
It's really nicely designed, again it's easily on par with paid for hotel experiences I've seen in SL. However, despite having adult furniture inside, you won't have any privacy as such as it's of course free and in quite a popular destination.
Facilities
The hotel has a restaurant and lounge downstairs, and a cafe just outside - both are self service of course, no RP.
There's also a small pool, which is quite cute and as mentioned, reminds me of holiday brochure pictures.
The animations
The room has a Nutmeg Summer Bliss bed (FF and MM as well as MF), while the bathroom includes a Nutmeg Adult Bath and a Dust Bunny Shower.
Other considerations
Lag? I was getting 20fps on High Graphics on a 2019 Macbook pro, which I was quite happy with
Prices? Free
Privacy? This is an open and free destination
Is it adult? There is adult furniture in the room
Overall
This is a beautiful place to visit, I can't see any reason why you wouldn't want to spend a few hours here. Now would also be a good time to go after it received a burst of publicity early in the year and so is a little quieter.
It did however make me think again of the market for private curated vacaation experiences, one which I believe exists in SL. This is something that the Cova Resort has been doing (Aria and myself went recently, see the review), and that Siargao Island was also offering last year
However, if creators opened up destinations like this for several weeks for couples or groups of friends to rent for a weekend before being accessible to the general SL public, I think there would be plenty of takers, and it might be a way for them to recoup the sometimes considerabe costs they incur.
I'm always looking for new and different date experiences for Aria and myself, and I'd definitely be up for it.
