BLOEMFONTEIN, South Africa – Four hours’ drive south of Johannesburg is this quiet city, the judicial capital of South Africa and the hometown of Zola Budd, the barefoot runner who collided infamously with Mary Decker during the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.
Bloemfontein (pronounced Bloom-fon-tain) is also the birthplace of the writer J.R.R. Tolkien. And one of the quaint hotels here is called the Hobbit Boutique Hotel, each room given to a theme from the book (no you don’t have to duck upon entering).
On the advice of German colleagues, I stayed there on Tuesday, before the Spain-Iraq match at the Confederations Cup. The staff is exceedingly friendly and it is a 15 or 20-minute walk from Free State Stadium, which will be used for the World Cup.
If you want more of a jungle theme, there is the Protea Hotel Willow Lake, located inside the Bloemfontein Zoo, even closer to the stadium.
Reporters covering the Spanish team here at the Confederations Cup are staying there. One of the Spanish reporters told me that every time he opens his window to the patio, he sees the zoo’s elephant outside. I guess that’s better than opening the closet and seeing a lion inside.
0 comments:
Post a Comment