URBN HOTEL.  Shanghai, China.

After a depressing stay at the tastelessly designed Radisson (smokey dining room, breakfast buffet 5 days in a row, and blinding beige marble, brass and glass), I needed a clean breath of air.

After an effortless check-in at Urbn Hotel on the quieter side of downtown in a historic residential neighborhood, I was in smokeless and eco-focused nirvana.  An enclosed bamboo courtyard opens into a 26-room boutique hotel, complete with organic cleaning products, warm wood against cool stone, chic menu and crowd.  

My ‘atrium’ room had a bamboo and stone garden window, an endless runway bathroom, and a sunken TV area.  Fast free wireless internet - who needs a ‘business hotel?’  Next came a free in-room massage, quick room service that arrived in an laser-etched box, and they even packed me a free breakfast to go for my early morning departure.

URBN rules.  About $220/night.

(Source: urbnhotels.com)

Another winner, this is Angela reporting from Barcelona:

I’m in the Born area staying in the Chic and Basic hotel. It’s gotta a real “boom chikka wow wow” thing going on but in a classy way. Just as the Hotel Denit, it’s housed in one of the beautiful historic stone buildings.

High ceilings, crown molding, -everything is white except for dark mahogany hardwood floors. It’s simple and sexy.

They set the mood with clear beaded curtains hanging from the ceiling in the hallways and in the rooms. At some areas there are so many you have to blindly feel your way thru them to get to where you’re going! Kinda like being swallowed up by several giant jellyfish!! When i got to my room and was reaching for the door, it almost felt like i was going thru some crazy new version of “the witch and the wardrobe”- sans the fur coats!

It’s a glass stall placed directly in front of floor to ceiling french doors that lead to the balcony. No worries, if you don’t want folks to see your buttocks, there are shades and shutters for the modest. ….and yet another wall of hanging clear beading.

To cap the experience, the rooms come complete with mood lighting- red, blue, or yellow like in the Tru Spa, S.F. (Never understood that color therapy by the way. Was lost on me.)  All I can say is somebody was fantasizing when they designed this. I ain’t mad! But they did forget the brass pole and a pair of glass stilettos next to the bed! 

All beading aside, they didn’t go too far. I like it. It’s very chill, peaceful, Chic and Basic.”