There are two things he loves most: traveling and being pampered. Ivo knows better than anyone where to book a room or suite this summer: from mosaic walls in Paris to ostentatious splendor in Rome.
WHEN IN ROME: GO TO NAPLES
The late Zara Hadid was the uncrowned queen of the rolling wave in architecture. There was no straight line in any of her buildings. She also did a few interiors, of which the Romeo Roma hotel is the most recent example. The fact that this was only completed almost ten years after her death proves that it was quite a feat. The wealthy owner and namesake, Alfredo Romeo, struggled with all kinds of state and municipal committees all that time, since the hotel is located in a seventeenth-century palace, with its associated protected frescoes. Romeo spared no expense or effort. He does not want to say how much, but it is clear that, even with a starting price for the cheapest room of € 2.500, rising to € 37.000, he will never earn back the investment in his life. The hotel industry whispers that the construction costs per room are the highest ever paid in a hotel worldwide. He himself considers it an expensive hobby. And what does the guest get for all that money? Sloping walls, washbasins, bathtubs, partitions, cupboards, ceilings, doors, everything is dizzying, disorientingly not straight, even the bath mats are wavy. It is not cheerful either: dark, high-gloss ebony is the main tone, entire walls are made of it, and the rest is filled with densely veined Carrara marble crossed with gold-gleaming brass, the taste of a Russian oligarch, but made for a hotel in Dubai instead of the heart of Rome. In fact, it most resembles the interior of a flashy mega-yacht. And to prevent you from trying it out: in the boarding room you can't turn your backside and you lie there looking at your own clothes, because the cupboard is right next to the bed and has no door. And yet the hotel is extremely popular. Perhaps because of the masses of Hadid fans there, or because chef Alain Ducasse runs the restaurants, so the breakfast is also of three-star quality. And that is included in the price. My advice: go to Naples instead of Rome. He also has a hotel there, Romeo Napoli, and a room costs one fifth of the price in Rome while the hotel is five times nicer.
JEWEL HOTEL
Shoemakers don’t stick to their last (shoe designer Christian Louboutin has a hotel, as does Spanish shoe brand Camper), so why should jewelry brands? Bulgari has several hotels, Boucheron has one, diamond jeweler Graff owns a beautiful resort in South Africa, and now Chopard has joined this illustrious list, in Paris, right next to their store on Place Vendôme, at number 1. Could it be more chic in terms of address? It’s small, has only fifteen rooms (well, only five, the rest are suites), costs at least as much per night as one of their rings and is super discreet, so just push open the anonymous, sapphire-blue door (no hotel sign or nameplate to be found anywhere) and once inside, everything goes smoothly, because there is no shortage of helpful staff. Marble floors, silk curtains with tassels as big as ponytails, heavy, gold-coloured room keys, wall lamps in the bathroom in the shape of two crystal lovebirds (Lalique?), sheets as soft as butter and supple as water and washbasins that are anchored in Louis XVI-style wooden dressers. In a kind of conservatory you initially think you are dealing with a particularly colourful wallpaper (palms, flowers, peacocks, birds of paradise) but on closer inspection it is a room-wide and -high mosaic of thousands of tiny stones. There is no restaurant, but you can have breakfast, lunch, dinner, supper in all the conservatories and salons, and of course there is also 24-hour room service. An ultra-chic and intimate hotel for people who do not need a spa, swimming pool, gym, beauty salon, terrace, because none of that is there. Booking on their site is fun (needless to say they are not on Booking cs): click on a date and a price of around €1.500 appears. But that is for the starter. If you want something bigger, you will soon be at four grand, and that is more than twice the price of a white gold/diamond Happy Diamonds Happy Hearts ring from the brand.
HOTEL PALACE
It was once called the Grand Hotel Astoria and was built in 1910 to accommodate the international guests for the then World Exhibition. And as happened to almost all such Grand Hotels, the Astoria also continued to decline until it finally closed its doors, neglected and sad. Until it was awakened in 2016 by the Corinthia hotel group, which completely renovated it (at a cost of over 150 million euros) until it recently reopened its fully restored and illustrious doors. It has now become the most majestic hotel in Brussels (and the whole of Belgium), while of course its monumental status has been completely preserved. Think of enormous halls with pillars and lots of gold on the edges, such as the immensely high Palm Court, full of palm trees of course, under a gigantic stained glass roof that could be completely reconstructed according to preserved drawings after it was completely destroyed in 1940. It all looks chic classic, while the rooms are remarkably light and airy, all in white-beige tones with some bright color accents, and of course equipped with all modern conveniences such as tablets with which everything can be controlled. One restaurant is from two-star chef Christophe Hardiquest, the other is an affordable brasserie. Room prices start at €500, which has become quite average for this type of hotel these days. The breakfast, however, was a bit of a shock in terms of price: €60 per person, although excellent, so I decided to do it anyway and not sit around the corner in a cheap breakfast place. And another big plus: the location in the heart of Brussels could not be more central.
