{"id":2004,"date":"2013-04-15T10:00:08","date_gmt":"2013-04-15T15:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/?p=2004"},"modified":"2013-03-29T10:47:13","modified_gmt":"2013-03-29T15:47:13","slug":"the-carrasco-hotel-casino","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/?p=2004","title":{"rendered":"The Leaning Tower of Carrasco"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Carrasco<\/a><\/p>\n

In this shot of the Casino Hotel Carrasco taken from\u00a0the other side of the Rambla (esplanade)\u00a0the hotel\u00a0 was nearing the final competion of the massive restoration project that has just been finished – at last.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0It first opened in 1921, and became an iconic building within the city of Montevideo,\u00a0but after many years of gradual decline,\u00a0the hotel finally closed about\u00a017 years ago and stood forlornly looking out over the River Plate as it crumbled\u00a0in situ<\/em> here in\u00a0Carrasco at the eastern end of Montevideo, 10 minutes from the airport.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Down the ensuing years\u00a0several attempts to carry\u00a0out the massive\u00a0restoration job fell through, one after the other, so that locals became rather used to the huge\u00a0abandoned building in which the actual casino part continued to function, until that was closed to enable the restoration to begin, again.\u00a0 But this time the job was completed.\u00a0\u00a0 It took several\u00a0years, perhaps 3, for this grand,\u00a0fin de siecle<\/em> hotel to be\u00a0transformed as a modern 5 star hotel. \u00a0We never did get our invitation to the gala opening ….. but I heard that was very political, and so we’d have been out of our league, but we enjoyed the fireworks anyway.\u00a0\u00a0One of my friend’s sons is a manager there, but\u00a0even she couldn’t wangle an invite, either.<\/p>\n

But\u00a0I’ve noticed one strange thing about it – walking on the beach about a year ago, heading westwards towards the hotel, I\u00a0saw for the first time that the two ‘towers’ on top are not\u00a0parallel, and my keen quilter’s eye detected a lean of perhaps 3-4 degrees off vertical in the western tower.<\/em><\/span>\u00a0 It’s hard to photograph because if you get up closer you can’t see it properly, but I took this recent pic in favourable early morning light:<\/p>\n

\"Leaning<\/a><\/p>\n

No one I’ve talked to seems to have noticed or have any idea about it, and so I have no idea\u00a0if something\u00a0happened many years ago or if it is moving ever so slowly, like the Tower of Pisa, Italy !!\u00a0<\/em> think I’ll get a confirmation of the situation before I spend time there …<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

So far, like many people thronging around the complex,\u00a0we’ve been in to have a look around, but haven’t yet had lunch, dinner, or spent a night there.\u00a0 Rooms start at, well, 5 star prices\u00a0;-p and gorgeous suites can be had for the thousands of dollars according to the\u00a0website!\u00a0 It looks lovely.\u00a0 You can phone up and have a guided tour of the hotel, which we might do sometime.<\/p>\n

In the Casino, much like other casinos, really, \u00a0there’s garish lighting of course, typical of casinos everywhere, and not many places\u00a0to sit, but\u00a0I thought these chairs looked very a nice,\u00a0stylish shape, though I wasn’t mad about the upholstery fabric which on one chair was aready showing a split seam at a corner.\u00a0\u00a0 I do think\u00a0leather would have been far classier,\u00a0as\u00a0they produce heaps of really lovely leather in this country – colours, textures, stamped designs, beautiful.<\/p>\n

\"Casino<\/a><\/p>\n

Of course I tried one for comfort, and am sorry to report these are the most dreadfully uncomfortable chairs I have ever sat in<\/span><\/em> – well, more like\u00a0‘perched on’, really, as the back rest is so far back at a difficult angle which leaves you literally sprawling in the chair – horribly uncomfortable, and\u00a0there’s no way to sit in a ladylike manner.\u00a0 Mike commented they don’t want you sitting around the gambling areas, anyway…. and\u00a0he\u00a0has a point.<\/p>\n

:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In this shot of the Casino Hotel Carrasco taken from\u00a0the other side of the Rambla (esplanade)\u00a0the hotel\u00a0 was nearing the final competion of the massive restoration project that has just been finished – at last.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0It first opened in 1921, and became an iconic building within the city of Montevideo,\u00a0but after many years of gradual decline,\u00a0the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2004","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6uxpF-wk","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2004","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2004"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2004\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2009,"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2004\/revisions\/2009"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2004"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2004"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2004"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}