EXPLORER’S HONG KONG

With front row seats for Hong Kong’s nightly laser show and adjacent to Harbour City and its mega-shopping centre with anything for everybody, sits a hotel its namesake could never have imagined.

Marco Polo’s fabled and fabulous (and some say fabricated) tales of his journey across Asia have turned his memory into an icon for groundbreaking and exciting ventures.

So it’s not a big leap of imagination to call a chain of ultra-sleek hotels after him. Begun in 1969, the Marco Polo Hotel Group has since spread across China, Hong Kong and the Philippines.

Welcome pack.

Recently I stayed in the group’s flagship hotel, Marco Polo Hongkong Hotel, in Canton Road at Tsim Sha Tsui, and gleefully accepted my upgrade to a room with a view. And what a view! My window looked out over the top of Harbour City, across Victoria Harbour filled with its bustling traffic of water craft, towards Hong Kong Island where we would water the night’s light show play out on the city buildings later.

Comfy bed

In addition, we were accorded the privilege of access to the Canton Lounge and popped in several times for the good coffee and varying snacks – dim sum, madeleines, sandwiches, Portuguese tarts – and a table where we could settle down with laptops. We could have come for breakfast too, but the main breakfast room was worth experiencing: every conceivable breakfast dish, including of course great HK yum cha offerings.

Canton Lounge

I have to admit that the lounge was not strictly necessary for work purposes. I hinted that the food and coffee was a major draw, didn’t I? Our room itself was more high-tech than almost anywhere else, with a Handy Phone that kept us connected for free.

If Marco Polo has continued in the afterlife as a time-traveller, he would love this place. The trouble is, when he returned his friends would never believe the stories of what he found on offer in his namesake accommodation in Hong Kong.

‘There’s old Marco again,’ they’d say, ‘always exaggerating!’

Marco Polo Hongkong Hotel, Harbour City, Kowloon, Hong Kong, www.marcopolohotels.com

BY GUEST BLOGGER - Pics & text : ©Sally Hammond www.foodandtravel.com.au 2016