If the Grand Tour was revived for 2008, sizzling Dubai and cool Moscow would surely be on the itinerary – via private jet, of course. Darius Sanai embarks on the travel rite of passage for the 21st century
Once upon a time it was mandatory for any gentleman of means and a certain aspiration to undergo a journey called the Grand Tour. First pioneered by the English romantic poets, it involved a journey across the cultural and social landscape of Europe, usually ending up in some Italian nobleman’s house, via seats of learning and culture in Germany, France and the Austro- Hungarian empire.
But where would a Grand Tour of 2008 take me? Not the Austro-Hungarian empire, obviously, and while I bow to nobody in my Tuscanophilia, it would need to be a bit further afield than the Med. It would need to involve the ‘happening’ spots of 2008. It soon became clear that this era’s equivalents of Brandenburg and Tuscany are Dubai and Moscow: rapidly emerging centres of wealth and pleasure. Like the Grand Tourers of old, the actual travelling on my tour would be as important as the destinations: the method of travel, and the places I stayed, would have to be marks of the 21st-century lux classes.
So my Grand Tour to these destinations started in the driver’s seat of my car, as my wife and I headed northwards out of London to Luton airport, home to the business class-only airline Silverjet.
If you’re lucky enough to fly private, you’ll know that one of the key differences between commercial and ‘real’ flying is the experience on land. The terminal hell of other people versus an intimate lounge. At Luton I aimed the Merc towards Silverjet’s bespoke terminal, where at the front door a liveried valet took the keys, unloaded the bags and ushered us inside to a Dunhill-designed lounge where we were handed a glass of champagne.
Er, what about checking in? Passport control? All done for you while you sip your champagne. A few minutes later we were handed our boarding cards and left in a state of stunned luxuriating: could flying really be this enjoyable? We hadn’t stood in a single line, or been treated to the usual views of folk stocking up onbooze/cigarettes/pants. Forget business class: Silverjet is private class.
After the glory of the pre-flight experience, where expectations, to use that hackneyed marketing phrase, were exceeded, the flight did exactly what it said on the tin. It was pure international business class, with reclining flatbed seats, a restaurant-designed menu (by Le Caprice, London’s celebrity haunt) and highly pleasant on-board staff. Silverjet is a small airline – it flies from London to New York and Dubai – and so we couldn’t expect the experience on the Dubai side to be as bespoke as the London end. But it was. This time we were taken to the ‘VIP Terminal’, small, luxurious and a complete contrast to the gigantic main airport terminal, where we sat with cups of tea and breakfast in a living room while passports were processed and luggage collected. No lines, no baggage carousels, no immigration sector to pass through. Then it was downstairs to a waiting limo sent by the One & Only Royal Mirage resort. Our bags were waiting for us by the time we got to our suite, and it struck me that it was the first time I’d touched the suitcase since loading it into my car outside our apartment in London the previous day.
Dubai is being recreated as the playground of the wealthy of the 21st century. No amount of new building can make it pretty, though, and a Grand Tourer of 200 years ago, expecting the vistas of the Côte d’Azur, would be dismayed by its flat desert, featureless coast and forest of towers.
Yet somehow One & Only has managed to retain a genuine resort-like atmosphere around the Royal Mirage. We wandered along walkways lined with trees and flowers where tropical birds played in the bushes; at each corner was a glimpse of a garden or quiet pool: the concrete jungle of the rest of Dubai is magically erased when you’re here.
In a city of straight lines, both vertical and horizontal, the One & Only was a series of interwoven curves, involving buildings, gardens, pools and foliage. Sitting by the massive, sunken pool at the Residence & Spa, with only a few other guests in sight, we felt like we were on a tropical island.
And the spa – opt for the Hamman treatment and you get a six-star version of the traditional Turkish ritual, with your own ‘hammamiste’ sloshing water, mud, algae and everything else onto you and generally resetting your rhythm to where it should be.
We were loathe to venture out of the resort, but that would have been self-defeating had the resort’s evening facilities not been up to scratch. For an aperitif we ventured to the rooftop bar, which being in Dubai, you might expect to have been milling with plump western businessmen and their Eastern European/Thai ‘nieces’. So it was a delight to discover a cool, Moroccan-style space brimming with attractive men and women of every nationality, with lounge music bubbling out of the speakers and New York-quality cocktails rolling out of the bar.
Yet more of a surprise was Nina, the Indian restaurant downstairs. Draped in cool golds and browns, with a DJ spinning tunes in the corner, it felt, just like the bar, a destination in Dubai – and a far cry from a regular hotel restaurant. The midly spiced chicken in yoghurt sauce and fish curry were as good as I’ve had in London and Mumbai’s top restaurants.
After the heat of nouveau riche (why does nobody use that term any more? Is it because everyone’s nouveau?) Dubai, it was off to the chill of nouveau riche Moscow. Until recently Moscow had no hotel to match its status as the city providing the world with some of its most ultra-wealthy characters. Muscovites flaunted it in six-star hotels from Monaco to Mayfair, but not in Moscow – or not until the Ritz- Carlton opened late last year.
Known to Muscovites simply as the ‘Reetz’, this edifice, by some miracle of planning consent, sprang up directly opposite the Kremlin and has an intimidating grandeur to match anything the Soviets dreamed up. It’s a lot more luxurious though, particularly in the executive lounge on the 10th floor, which has floor-to-ceiling views of the Kremlin, Red Square, and the wonderfully mad St Basil’s Cathedral. Here you are served champagne, oysters and caviar by long-legged maidens of the Urals, while sitting back into deep armchairs and thinking of ways to mine plutonium in Siberia. (I couldn’t think of any, but fellow guests clearly had.) Then it’s up to the rooftop bar, 02, hich is swathed in glass on every side, like a crystal ball atop the city. The oligarchs’ drink of choice appears to be what the Romanovs preferred 80 years ago, namely wine and champagne, but I preferred to sip smooth, iced Russkaya Standart vodka, puff on a Cohiba Siglo Six and reflect that my hedonistic Grand Tour of 2008 would have been inconceivable just 10 years ago, let alone 200 years ago when it all started.
