Room With a View of Royalty!
We visited Tokyo in 2000 and stayed in the Palace Hotel. This is not the high-tech, impersonal style of many modern hotels. Instead, this is a stately grand hotel across the street from the Imperial Palace. In bustling Tokyo, this is an oasis of calm and old-world Japan. While all the rooms and accommodations are modernized, you feel the stately presence of the Imperial Palace. Windows still open and you can smell fresh air and hear the birds. In the morning, you can walk the grounds of the Imperial Palace, and you can see a group of senior women volunteers who go in to clean the Palace. Guards are present and remind visitors that this is royal grounds and not to jog or behave disrespectfully. You can walk on the crunch of gravel around the entire Palace, a lake, and the block in the center of bustling Tokyo. Then return to the Hotel for a serene meal or rest. When you leave, as we did on a tour bus, management comes to the door and bows and waves, thanking you for your visit! This is where I'd want to retire to every evening after going out into the hustle and bustle of modern Tokyo. Where else can you stay in a hotel across the street from a Palace?