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Amazing Rotating Hotel in Portugal: Design and Wine

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Discovering new cutting-edge hotel properties is always exciting, and I found something totally unique in the northern seaside town of Caminha, in Portugal, where there is an amazing high-tech 4-star luxury hotel, the Design & Wine Hotel.

The hotel has five suites installed on a raised platform with a pillar that weighs 18 tons and rotates on its very own. This is new thinking in the new luxury hotel business and was designed by Pedro Guimarães. It has 23 thematic rooms in an 18th-century building known as the Solar das Torres.

The five suites overlook the Minho River and the Santa Tecla Mountains and rotate 35 degrees two times a day so that the guests fall asleep looking at the mountain and awake looking at the river.

The hotel’s architectural and interior designs embody the property’s concept down to the last detail. The hotel expresses its harmonious relationship with the surrounding landscape through its sustainable design: Solar panels power the property, an automatic lighting system in each room conserves energy, and a strict environmental policy allows guests to recycle. The hotel lives up to its name through its support of local culture and cuisine. Each of the hotel’s rooms features a design concept influenced by painting, graphic design, street art or fashion.

Wine holds an important place in the Design & Wine experience — the hotel’s bright, airy restaurant serves traditional Portuguese cuisine with a modern twist, while the warm, earth-toned enoteca wine cellar serves up some of the finest local vintages, with an emphasis on Vinho Verde, a young wine created from Alvarinho and Loureiro grapes.

One half of the Portuguese architecture duo Barbosa & Guimarães and co-owner of Design & Wine, Pedro Guimarães is well known for iconic concept-buildings. Hot on the heels of his critically acclaimed, high-tech design for Vodaphone’s new headquarters in Porto, Guimarães transformed a historic manor building into a sophisticated oasis for art and wine lovers alike, harnessing the natural beauty of the region and its local art and heritage through its dramatic combination of contemporary art and environmental sustainability.