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Check in with Ivo Weyel
He enjoys two things most: traveling and being pampered. Ivo knows better than anyone where to book a room or suite.
NORWEGIAN FJORDS
The great philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein loved the Norwegian fjords. In his twenties he settled there to sit and think, which would become the seed for his later philosophical reasoning. He was inspired by the 'seriousness of the landscape' (his words): 'I spend my days walking, whistling, thinking logically and illogically, being depressed and suffering.' He stayed there of his own free will in a simple hut, even though his family was one of the richest in early twentieth-century Austria. I'm not a philosopher and don't like simplicity, so I travel the Norwegian fjords partly by cruise (on Holland America Line's Koningsdam), train and rental car. I don't get depressed, but I do get humbled by so much nature and so little me. Especially when you sail silently between the enormous mountain walls that rise straight up from the water, in my case – how beautiful winter is! – under a layer of powder snow. I spend the night in Bergen in hotel Opus Lonely Planet) straight through mountain and valley, where Ingmar Bergman visualized his gloom and the writer Karl Ove Knausgaard finds his greatest happiness when he 'sees the cherry blossoms blooming against a background of shiny white glaciers under a clear blue sky.' I shudder when I see the hand-signed screams of Edvard Munch in the beautiful Vestlia Resort Hotel in Geilo, where the collecting owner has hung many of this Norwegian painter's works, which are not easy on the eyes. Of course there is fantastic skiing (cross country) and bobsledding in the winter and there are zero lines for the lifts even in high season, but I prefer to look rather than climb, read rather than converse, and prefer to listen to silence then to Grieg's piano concerto in A minor (he was too dejected for major). The daily program of the Koningsdam states that there is Happy Hour at 16.00:16.30 PM in the Ocean Bar (second drink free, yeah!), followed seamlessly at XNUMX:XNUMX PM by an AA meeting in the adjacent Hudson Bar. Wittgenstein already wrote: 'Life is only logical when it is illogical.' And who said again: 'Nature is beautiful, but you need something to drink with it?'
EXPENSIVE, MORE EXPENSIVE, MOST EXPENSIVE
I'm not cutting corners. On the contrary. Money is for doing good or having fun with. Traveling is my favorite hole in the hand. But there are limits. Okay, nice hotels are expensive, and rightly so, because you often have something. But there is a trend of hysterically increasing steps. I noticed this last year in Paris, where new hotels such as Le Cheval Blanc, Le Grand Contrôle, Bulgari and others charge almost two thousand euros for an entry-level room. Of course, these are world brands, so if you think that is too expensive, go to a smaller boutique hotel, somewhere in a distant neighborhood, then you will get value for your money. So I thought I would take a look at L'Hôtel Particulier, a new, small-scale hotel far up in Montmartre, so far from everything that you actually don't want to stay there, but housed in a not too large house that once belonged to the Hermès family. , at the end of a cul-de-sac. Looks nice, small garden, only five rooms, nice bathroom with mosaic, bit of retro art deco, no-nonsense white linen. Starts immediately when booking: one night is not a night, so two nights is the minimum stay. Irritating. And then the price. Costs 1.500 euros in low season. Exclusive breakfast. Really, a bit of luxurious travel is becoming increasingly difficult to afford even for rich people. Ditto in New York. The newest branch of the Aman chain recently opened there on the corner of Fifth Avenue and 57th Street. The Aman hotels are famous for their high zen factor and winking staff and so many turndown services in a day that there is always someone busy in your room. I have stayed there frequently over the past decades, anywhere in the world, all beautiful and yes, all expensive, around a thousand euros. So I thought: come on, I'll treat myself to a night at Aman NY. Not. During the period I wanted to stay there, the minimum stay was four (FOUR!!) nights. For the price of a white gold/diamond Rolex (which I don't want), because 18.000 euros! Excluding breakfast (€55) and tax (€100 pp per day). I'm checking out.
Hotelparticulier.com | Aman.com
HOW
I am a fan of Lake Como. The hotels, the villas, the color of the water, the sunrises and sunsets, the smell of oleanders, the George Clooney's. This year the queen of Como hotels, the Villa d'Este, celebrates its 150th season. It used to be the hotel to stay in, but now there is exuberant competition, such as the Grand Hotel Tremezzo, beautiful, luxurious, Italian in the best sense of the word. For families you can recently rent a separate hotel villa there, La Sola Cabiati, once owned by an Italian count, and exactly everything you expect from such an antique villa, down to the gilded fences and coats of arms above the doors, plus a Riva for the water door. And then the newest baby: Villa Passalacqua, from the same family/owners as Tremezzo, but on a smaller scale. Spouting fountains in the park, Venetian chandeliers galore, antique murals and those open garden doors with fluttering net curtains in the warm wind and classically dressed waiters bringing Bellinis and olives that are really bigger and tastier than anywhere else. And it doesn't cost anything (especially in light of the above piece): from a paltry 1.000 euros per night.
Grandhoteltremezzo.com | Passalacqua.it|Villadeste.com
