LUXURY TRAVEL NEWS

In which our Editor-in-Chief explores niche, independent luxury as the theme
for this issue on his travels around the world. Darius Sanais

Hoteliers are fond of saying that first impressions of any property are key, as they form an indelible imprint on the mind no matter what ensues. This may be the case more for negative experiences than positive ones. Unfortunately for certain hoteliers, I have a searing memory for arrivals to empty reception desks, clumsy or absent door staff, forgotten reservations and in particular the slightly surreal arrival drink offer in one of Europe’s grandest palace hotels. In the latter, arriving late one evening after a delayed flight, I received a perfectly respectable greeting and check-in in the palatial lobby, and was asked if I wished to have my welcome drink taken up to my room, rather than drink it in the lobby as my journey had been so long.

Having agreed to this thoughtful gesture, I went up to my room with my bag, waited, shower kit in hand, for my San Bitter (a kind of nonalcoholic Cinzano) to arrive before getting cleaned and changed for the dinner I was late for. Not wanting to be hauled, dripping, out of the shower, I waited a few minutes, gave up – there were some bottles of San Bitter in the minibar and ice in a bucket in any case - called Reception to cancel, only to be told the drink was on its way up from the bar.

A long four minutes later (I was counting), there was a knock at the door. I opened it to find a slightly dishevelled bar back (the chap who cleans up the bar) brandishing, in his fist, an unopened small bottle of San Bitter: no lemon, no ice, indeed no glass, and no tray. Thrusting it at me as if I were a panhandler, he grunted and marched off towards the staff elevator. That’s the best example I have yet seen of a bright management initiative rendered counterproductive by its execution, made more vivid by the fact that it was a first impression.

None of that applies to any of the hotels on these pages, but the indelible first impression does apply for me to the city of Berlin, which I first visited on November 10th, 1989, which historians among LUX readers will know as the day after the Berlin Wall fell, or more precisely, when the government of East Germany allowed its people beyond the wall for the first time in decades, heralding the collapse of Communism and the Soviet Union. As a student journalist who had taken the first flight over, I was rapt at the crowds of millions of drably-dressed ‘Ossis’, wandering, dazed, through the streets of plenty in West Berlin; and equally agog on being one of the very few people to make the journey East that day, into a ghost city beyond the Wall, where the streets had no cars, and whose few remaining occupants looked fearful and bewildered.

All of that is ancient history – or at least, 22 year old history – I told myself when embarking on my latest trip there: having visited Moscow, Shanghai, Johannesburg and points beyond during their own historical upheavals since then, the German capital should feel a city like any other. The Wall is forgotten, unknown by the latest generation.

A long row of buff-coloured Mercedes and Skoda taxis lined up at the airport terminal. So what serendipity was it that put me at the exact spot in the queue that I would climb into Harry Hampel’s taxi? As he sped towards the city centre, I noticed a slightly battered coffee table book in the seatback pocket in front of me. It was entitled Where The Wall Stood, and was an engaging series of pictures taken in the same spots around the city before and after the Wall, sometimes at an interval of 20 years. It turned out that my driver was the photographer and publisher – he said he had sold more than 20,000 copies in the past few years, mainly through Amazon.

I emerged at the Hotel de Rome clutching a new copy of his book, which he had unwrapped from its cellophane and dedicated while taking my fare, deciding Berlin’s associations wouldn’t change for me just yet. And then I noticed where I was: on a grand square just off Unter Den Linden, the great boulevard that had been cut in two by the Wall, just on the side of what had been East Berlin, and exactly the spot where I had seen the barren and bewildered eastern city on my first visit.

What is now Berlin’s most luxurious hotel had been a prominent landmark during that first visit of mine, but for rather different reasons. The Hotel de Rome was originally the headquarters of the Dresdner Bank, one of the most powerful institutions of the Prussian Junker class in the late 19th century, as testified by its grand pillars and dramatic entrance hall. Damaged but not destroyed in the war, on November 10th 1989 it was being used as the headquarters of the Berlin district of the East German Communist Party, and had presumably been filled with rather apprehensive occupants on my last pass.

The former bank HQ lends itself very well to the demeanour of a grand hotel, the tastefully uplit Atrium sparely spotted with the occasional swooping contemporary sofa, the staff dignified and statuesque. My room, facing the square with a delightful, private, sunny balcony on which I communed with my iPad, was smart rather than grand, but with a definite sense of place.

The Hotel de Rome’s greatest assets are upstairs and downstairs. On the roof, the expansive terrace bar and lounge offers sweeping views of what is, admittedly, one of Europe’s most underwhelming capital cityscapes, largely a featureless sprawl with a few historical landmarks, thanks to the Second World War. The roof area is cleverly done, neither too cramped nor too formal, a wide, languorous and open place to drink champagne or an ironic Moscow Mule and forget about time, past, present or future.

Down in the building’s bowels is the spa. As befits a place that caters to captains of industry and, one suspects, leaders of marginal Eurozone countries coming cap in hand to the German capital to seek finances, this is a wellness clinic that takes its duties very seriously, rather than just pay them lip service. My deep tissue massage turned my muscles inside out, in the best possible way.

Overall, the Hotel de Rome has everything a fine European city hotel should have – history, culture, class, and a great bar – and it merits a LUX rating of 18.5/20.

I recently had to travel to Burgundy, in France, for business and found myself staying in another historical city, albeit one whose time in the limelight was several centuries ago, namely Dijon. Dijon is currently being defaced by a trambuilding program of quite astonishing destructiveness, and the Hotel La Cloche, the city’s most renowned old hostelry, has the misfortune to sit directly next to the path of the grinding diggers. Get a room on the quiet, garden side, though, and you are thrown into a world of fading European aristocracy, curiously poignant in these economic times. My room was neither large nor grand but had a class about it, a view across the small garden to the rooftops of other classical buildings, antique and repro furniture dotted around like you might find in the house of a landed friend fallen on slightly harder times.

The service, provided by the Sofitel chain, was absolutely snappy and efficient, which ended up feeling rather incongruous: rather than the dozy French maitre who had been working there since De Gaulle was an infant, you received zippy Asianstyle promptness. Which makes this perhaps the only time I have found fault, of a sort, with service that’s too good.

La Cloche, which was declared a national heritage site in 1975 to save it from being razed and redeveloped (it sits on Dijon’s central square), is a type of hotel that is dying out, and I found it rather endearing. It earns a 16/20 LUX rating, which would have been a point higher had it not been stubbornly French in only having a formal restaurant serving formal food.

Europeans may fear becoming a kind of historical Disneyland for the next era’s wealthy travellers from the East, but I demur: there’s nothing to fear and plenty to desire about tourist dollars, whether they hail from St Louis or Shanghai. History is something you can’t build, and Europe is uniquely fortunate in having a welldeveloped but richly historical tourist fabric. This becomes easier to appreciate when you have visited some other regions of the world with long and rich histories: intervening poverty and wars mean there is a lot of grime between the pearls. In a former Soviet Republic I was recently flabbergasted by the beauty of a 500-year-old Islamic palace, which was situated, unsignposted, on the edge of a post- Communist quasi-shanty town that nobody would want to spend any time in, having travelled many hours to get to.

Edinburgh has a similarly ancient site to attract travellers, but the Castle is at its heart and the locals make no mistakes about using history to make travellers welcome. History is so interwoven into every visit to Edinburgh that I rather like staying at the Sheraton Edinburgh, which has perhaps the best view of the Castle and the craggy hillsides of Arthur’s Seat behind it, of any hotel, but is distinctly and determinedly modern.

On my latest visit – the hotel has just finished yet another thorough refurbishment – my room was a paragon of high-end international business chic, all lacquered woods with a bathroom encased by a glass box, making the views all the more striking. Everything worked, too, with not a draught in sight. The business lounge, facing the other side, could have been in Mexico City or Macau, but that was rather fun too, cocking a snook at the over-proud Edinburghers whose city hasn’t been at the centre of anything much historical for several centuries, and whose last remaining banner, that of fiscal prudence, was ripped away by the economic crisis and – of all things in this Protestant bastion – a municipal corruption scandal.

The spa, the pool, the restaurant, all were slickly modern and perfectly efficient. Perhaps without those views, the hotel would just have been another high-end business hotel, but as it is, it’s an excellent juxtaposition and earns a LUX rating of 17/20.

The classic combination for any typical visitor – once from the States, now perhaps from the People’s Republic – is to attach the Lake District on to Edinburgh, although it is said that a small area of pristine wilderness may not be particularly appealing to a nation that can count the Himalayas among its attractions. The Lakes have their own attraction, though: Bassenthwaite Lake and its surroundings, viewed from the lawns falling down from Armathwaite Hall was, on a recent visit, an ethereal blend of shades of ochre and brown.

Armathwaite is a rare thing, a proper English stately home turned luxury hotel in the Lake District, although its current owners have kept up with the times, installing a spa, 16-metre infinity pool and (hm) conference facilities, whose users you can avoid by staying at weekends. Décor is no more than traditional, but well maintained.

The chef draws on local produce although is clearly keen to stay in touch with Escoffier’s principles, so the food is complex and reasonably sophisticated if perhaps elaborate for some; and there are some excellent aged clarets to exploit. But you come here for the location, the views, and the walks, and it merits a 16.5/20 LUX rating.

For the international travelling class, Sardinia is usually associated with one of three things: Porto Cervo and it billionaire-bling summers; the family play paradise of Forte Village (unrelated to the Forte above); and as a yachting destination. The latter took off after a hotel far in the island’s north, La Maddalena, hosted the 2010 Louis Vuitton Trophy, and La Maddalena itself, with its yacht club, has become a sought-after destination for the sailing community.

A recent visit to the hotel itself revealed a place of contemporary elegance – the hotel was finished just in time for the Trophy – situated in glorious isolation on an island off the north coast of Sardinia, surrounded by white sand beaches and very few crowds. The design comes with a light touch, with input from everyone from Zaha Hadid (chandeliers) to Dominique Perrault (chairs).

The Momento restaurant has sweeping views through its floor-to-ceiling windows across the bay, so you can guess who is being entertained by whom on which yacht, and the wine list was put together by a fanatic, which is always a good thing.

The main draw is still for the yachting crowd: the former military port that has been converted into the Maddalena Marina can take everything up to superyachts of over 110m long, unlike Porto Cervo and much of the Mediterranean, and can berth 450. La Maddalena is probably an essential and very pleasurable stop if you are on your Palmer Johnson-built floating champagne palace in the summer, and receives a LUX rating of 17/20.