Whats in a Name - Hotel D'Urville, Blenheim

When putting together the trip I liked the sound of the name. I was looking for quirky, different town hotels and I loved what I though was a New Zealand play on the French name Hotel de Ville, which of course is not a hotel at all but a town hall. The web site seemed to back up my thoughts with its description of the hotel which was a restored former trust building where important papers and valuables could be stored.

The hotel sits right in the centre of Blenheim, a big white imposing building in a shopping street of normal New Zealand timber framed two story buildings. It has a delightful entrance leading to a bar on the right and a dining room on the left all of which gave the feel of an individually styled hotel.

We arrived early and our room was not ready so we dumped our bags with reception and shot off to get our hire car and then to do a couple of quick tastings.

We arrived back 2 or 3 hours later and found that our bags had been moved to our room which we were now shown to and which turned out to be thoughtfully and tastefully decorated, but in a somewhat quirky style. You see I was right about that name, it was a sure give away.

We unpacked and I did a little blogging. We decided upon a bar meal which turned out to be a good choice as the restaurant was pretty much taken over by an office Christmas party. Anyhow we were feeling really stuffed so a full blown meal would have been over the top for us and we got the bar to ourselves. Whatever it was we had, I think mine was oysters, we washed it down with a good bottle of the local Sauvignon Blanc.

Breakfast, like all New Zealand breakfasts can be as substantial as you like and so we decided on a no lunch strategy for the day. We were a bit disappointed to have missed out on a full meal the previous night as the hotel enjoys a good reputation for food so we really wanted to make sure we did not miss out in Martinborough.

While we were booking out I was looking at some large scale maps of the Marlborough Sound and there sitting there as the northern most island was the Island of D’Urville, so much for my guess work!

www.durville.com