City: Portland, ME

Category: Accommodations

Telephone: (207) 775-2311, (800) 345-5050

Address: 88 Spring Street

Description: For more than three decades, the Holiday Inn By the Bay has cast its shadow on the downtown from its elevated perch on Spring Street. The hotel sits on the unofficial border between the West End (which, according to conventional wisdom, begins a half-block away at, oh, around High Street) and the downtown and is the area’s “Old Reliable” for quality, convenient accommodations. The Holiday Inn By the Bay boasts 239 guest rooms and executive suites, half of which have a view of Casco Bay. Guest room amenities include wireless Internet access, phones with voice mail, and coffeemakers, and the hotel has a fitness center, a sauna, a 24-hour business center, and Greater Portland’s largest indoor hotel swimming pool. Ample parking is available with valet service, which is handy because with this prime location in the center of town, you’ll probably want to leave your car behind and hoof it most days. The hotel is located on Spring Street, which runs along the peninsula from the Evergreen Cemetery deep in the West End to Middle Street in the heart of the Old Port. The theme of the Holiday Inn By the Bay could truly be “location, location, location”: A 10-minute walk west on Spring will land you in one of the most architecturally distinctive residential neighborhoods in the country, and a mere five-minute walk east will find you peering into boutiques, sipping locally brewed java, and breathing in the salty air in the Old Port.