A Freeway View at the Four Seasons?
Cruise planner Leslie Fambrini and me having lunch at Osteria da Quattro in the Four Seasons Silicon Valley.
When I heard that the Four Seasons had built a hotel overlooking Highway 101 here in the Bay Area, I was intrigued. Not your typical Four Seasons location, to be sure. So I took cruise expert Leslie Fambrini of Personalized Travel Consultants, a veteran of Conde Nast Traveler's annual list of the world's top travel agents, to lunch at the Four Seasons Silicon Valley last week. Yes, the hotel is smack up against the freeway. But -- surprisingly -- no, you can't hear a thing from inside.
Before lunch, Leslie and I took a tour of the hotel, which opened in January 2006. It's built in an area called Whiskey Gulch, once a run-down neighborhood of liquor stores and the like in East Palo Alto. It's a convenient enough location for business travelers taking meetings in Silicon Valley, but it's a long walk for leisure travelers wanting to see Palo Alto or the Stanford campus, 2 miles west on University Avenue.
If you end up at the Four Seasons Silicon Valley despite its strange location, be careful about which room you take. The rooms are almost all the same size, so the rates correspond to the view. The Four Seasons has done a fine job of insulating the freeway-side rooms from any noise -- it's almost eerie to look down from a room and be able to see but not hear the traffic just a few dozen feet away. Here's a view from the 3rd floor:
Nothing to write home about, as you can see, even if you do have a mountain view far in the background. The lowest category of rooms -- moderate -- have this view. For my money, you're better off moving up to a superior room for an extra $30. Request a room on a higher floor (superiors are on floors 2 through 7) and you'll get this view:
Those are the Santa Cruz Mountains in the background.
If you go, bring a swimsuit: There's a nice rooftop pool with cabanas and a cafe for drinks and lunch.
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