Hotel del Coronado. Some like it hot.

Just out from San Diego is Coronado island, site of the fabulous Hotel del Coronado.

A once stylish holiday resort to the rich and famous, it is the largest wooden structure of its kind to survive to this day(the rest seem to have been eaten by termites or gone up in flames).  One of its later day claims to fame is as the sight where Marilyn Munroe cavorts on the  beach in one of our all time favourites, "Some like it hot."

Whilst its foyer still maintains some dignity, the uninspiring gift shops and corporate conference centre signage give this grand old dame a dowdy tinge.

Still, viewed from the beach through a sand castle, you can drift away to an earlier, more glamourous time.  Royalty, railway tycoons, newspaper moguls, presidents and eligible heiresses.  

Now its cardboard cutout movie stars and podgy real-estate agents at conferences.

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