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| Hotel Paso del Norte fka Camino Real Hotel, El Paso, Texas. November 2016. |
November 2016
I'm calling it the Camino Real Hotel because I'm a contrarian. It's new-old name is the Hotel Paso del Norte.
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| Hotel Paso del Norte fka Camino Real Hotel, El Paso, Texas. November 2016. |
The latter name was its original name back in the early 1900s when the hotel was built.
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| Hotel Paso del Norte fka Camino Real Hotel, El Paso, Texas. November 2016. |
It's undergoing remodeling now. The proposed name of the restaurant and the dining room? Get ready. Cantina Restaurant Bar. Pancho Villa Steakhouse. With all of the richness of culture in Mexico and the Southwest, this is the best they could do? Sheesh.
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| Hotel Paso del Norte fka Camino Real Hotel, El Paso, Texas. November 2016. |
Anyway, the hotel is on prime El Paso real estate. Within spitting distance of the Plaza Theater, the art and history museums, the ball field, the convention center, and the U.S./Mexican border.
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| Hotel Paso del Norte fka Camino Real Hotel, El Paso, Texas. November 2016. |
I went inside before the renovations began so I could gawk at the alleged Tiffany-designed light in the bar.
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| Hotel Paso del Norte fka Camino Real Hotel, El Paso, Texas. November 2016. |
Based on what I've read, the locally-famous stained-glass dome probably has no connection to the Tiffany name, but the hotel continues to derive some glow from the lingering possibility of a connection.
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| Hotel Paso del Norte fka Camino Real Hotel, El Paso, Texas. November 2016. |
As you can see, the hotel was, and still is, pretty grand.
Too bad how the television mars the Old World charm of the bar beneath the splendor of the stained-glass dome.
I find myself thinking about ceilings in Tlaxcala, Mexico, which I visited with friends in 2009.
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| Hotel Posada San Francisco, Tlaxcala, Tlaxcala, Mexico. February 2009. |
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| San Francisco Convent, Tlaxcala, Tlaxcala, Mexico. February 2009. |
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| Basilica of the Virgin of Ocotlan, near Tlaxcala, Tlaxcala, Mexico. February 2009. |
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