Wander(lust)

Hotel Review: Suenos Tulum

We returned a few days ago from Tulum, Mexico, a slice of perfection an hour and a half south of Cancun. Our hotel was Suenos Tulum, an oasis of bonhomie, blinding white sand, and sea that ranged from color of louched absinthe (well, let's just say "light aqua") to turquoise to marine blue. The five buildings are embellished with Mayan-inspired reliefs and murals and each is named for an element—Tierra (land), Lluvia (rain), Selva (jungle), Sol (sun), and Luna (moon). Nothing even remotely garish, everything harmonious, in colors of coral, avocado, terra cotta, and putty.

The team that runs Suenos Tulum has much to do with the hotel's laid-back, unobtrusive but completely professional vibe. Jorge and Elizabeth Calles opened the hotel in November 2004; Jorge is also the chef of the beachfront restaurant, which has just four tables and is only open to hotel guests, and the artist behind the Mayan reliefs and much of the furniture. The manager, Alan Gallart, is fantastic—there whenever you need him for a restaurant recommendation, extra beach towel, reservations, etc. (And the only time we went wrong with a meal was when we went against his advice and our better judgment, dining at Ana y Jose's.)

While Tulum is still a paradise in spots like Suenos Tulum, caveat emptor: The "Mayan Riviera" is spreading ever southward, encroaching on the solitude and "off the grid" aesthetic that makes the area so special. From the Tulum ruins, you follow the Boca Paila-Punta Gorda road south, and in many ways can tell how unspoiled a place is by its distance from the ruins.

Suenos Tulum is at Km 10 on the road, practically at the end of the line before the Sian Kaan Biosphere. A glance southward from the top balcony of any of the buildings reveals only jungle, sand, and water. The photo above is the view from our third-floor balcony of the room where we stayed our last of five nights. It was very windy and there has been little rain, so the area is parched and not as verdant as usual. But the sand remains sugar-white and powder fine, swept daily by the rest of the hotel crew, who also make sure that everything is perfect, from lighting torches at night to keeping the rooms incredibly clean for a beachfront hotel.

Suenos Tulum is all about seclusion, from its location to the ever-present roar of the wind and sea that add to the sense of cosseted isolation. There are no TVs or other such trappings in the 14 rooms. But that's not why you come to Suenos Tulum. You come for the breakfasts: awesome Mexican coffee, breads, and heaping plates of fresh pineapple, banana, melon, mango, and grapes drizzled with honey, yogurt, and granola. You come for the impromptu lunches, maybe cactus nachos or tuna tostadas. You come for the sunrise yoga classes—although I never made it to one, I saw no fewer than three guests reading the latest issue of Yoga Journal. You come for the boogie boards and the dips in the Caribbean. You come to cool off in the pool if the surf is too rough. You come for the wonderful day beds (pictured below, complete with two of the hotel's four sweet dogs), where you can spend the entire day reading under an adjustable awning, gazing out at the horizon, or napping after that second Sol at lunch. And, most of all, you come for what you can't get away from at home—and although the property is said to have Wi-Fi, I never saw a guest using anything remotely resembling a laptop (or even an iPod) 

Our last night we stayed in the top-level, master suite (pictured at left) in Lluvia, which was aerier and had better lighting than the second-floor room in Tierra where we'd spent the preceding four nights. All the rooms have tile floors, lovely bedspreads, local art work, porthole-shaped windows, balconies, mosquito netting on the beds (not needed due to the strong breezes, at least this trip), ceiling fans, great bathrooms with open showers, and candles and incense. The master suites have platform beds with built-in storage, king-size beds, better views, and high, palapa-type ceilings. Our room in Tierra (at right) had lower ceilings but, at $40 less a night less, was cozier and warmer than the suite and had a really cool bathroom with a Talavera mirror and sink.

The property and rooms are "eco-chic"—a much overused term, at least in Tulum, where every cabana campground and tired-looking property was attempting to cash in on this appeal. But at Suenos Tulum, it was the real thing. The property gets its electricity from solar panels, so that by the time you took a shower at 4 pm after a day on the beach, there was plenty of hot water. The bathrooms are simple, with beautiful tiles and painting, but there's not enough electricity to, say, plug in a hair dryer. The lighting in the rooms is low-level, which can make it difficult to put on makeup, but the air-dried, fresh-faced look everyone sports is the "great leveler" (although, of course, the truly beautiful people still look better than everyone else).

So get thee to Suenos Tulum, before this mini-resort is booked up months in advance and the Mayan Riviera creeps even farther south. For the time being, it's paradise regained.

An Inn in Provence, or Toujours Martine

While Provence is not the "region du jour" it was some years back, there remains a mystique about it that continues to seduce newcomers and faithful returnees alike. I, for one, am happy that it is not the Dordogne or the Languedoc or anywhere else in France---or the world, for that matter. It is Provence, and it is magnificent. Until I visited the region, I'd always assumed that the colors in Van Gogh's paintings were exaggerated. Yet there they are in the landscape, in all their intensity: the polleny yellow of the sunflowers, the purple of the lavender, the evergreen of the cypresses, the glinting silver of the olive groves, the mauve of the mountains, and the velvety blue of the evening sky.

My favorite place to stay in Provence is a small bed and breakfast called La Campagne Jeanne, situated a few kilometers outside Aix-en-Provence. I have a natural aversion to most B&Bs, with their lack of privacy and sense of enforced bonhomie. But everything at La Campagne Jeanne is done with the utmost elan by the proprietress, Martine Alexandrian, who lives in the adjacent house with her husband, Daniel. The B&B comprises just four rooms, each with its own private entrance and terrace enclosed by low stone walls. All the rooms are incredibly clean and crisp, with beautifully coordinated Provencal fabrics, antique timbers, tiled floors, and white bathrooms. La Campagne Jeanne is not luxurious, so if your Provence experience necessitates a Relais & Chateaux-type experience, better to stay at Villa Gallici. But I highly recommend it if you want to experience the wind blowing through the cypresses, the beautiful sunsets and night sky, and a chic but not overblown Provencal atmosphere.

And, best of all, the experience comes at a very affordable price: Each room is just 60 Euro per night, including a fabulous breakfast spread of fruit, yogurt, fresh juice, croissants, cheese, jams, and cappuccino. Martine is a wonderful host, and although her English is limited (and our French elementary at best), she always manages to get across directions and restaurant recommendations and to impart, well, joie de vivre. (Cliched, but true.) Because of its location four kilometers outside Aix, you'll need a car to stay at La Campagne Jeanne. You'll want one, anyway, to take day trips to the the Lubéron, Bonnieux, L'Isle-sur-la-Sorgue, Roussillon, Cassis, or beyond.

Lastly, Martine and Daniel have put together a great Web site that provides extensive information, including photos of each room and its particular fabrics and antiques. We prefer Le Mazet---with its walls lime-washed in the ochre shade of Roussillon and an antique desk with a secret drawer---but I'd be equally at home in any of the rooms.

The Worst Hotel in Italy

Let me say from the beginning: I'm not one for hyperbole. I don't compose such an inflammatory title lightly; a hotel has to be simply awful in more than one way to merit such an epithet. However, there is one particular establishment that truly earns this dubious distinction: the Villa Athena, in Agrigento, Sicily. Ugh----I shudder to even write its name, as the memories of the New Year's Eve we spent there in 2001 come creeping back, like the mold that covered much of our bathroom. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

First off, the Villa Athena is a famous hotel located on a gorgeous site, overlooking the Valley of the Temples. Apparently many celebrities stayed there in its heyday---Sophia Loren and the like---but they certainly wouldn't deign to stay there now. The Villa Athena's sole draw is that from **some** of the rooms you can glimpse the Greek temples when they are lit at night. Yes, this is a lovely prospect, but you don't have to stay at the Villa Athena to experience it. The Valley of the Temples is an amazing sight, and you should definitely see it if you are in Sicily. But if you stay overnight in Agrigento or its environs, please don't make my mistake: stay at the Baglio della Luna or somewhere else instead.

From the moment we stepped into the Villa Athena's "lobby," I knew that nothing good could come of this. The rude receptionist immediately charged my credit card for $300, then practically threw the key at me, while the bellhop stood there, unabashedly scratching himself. And no, I don't mean that he was scratching his head. After carrying our bags to our room, he grunted when we handed him his tip. Then the real fun began, as we inspected our tiny room. The carpet was filthy and peeling, the walls were dirty, the bathroom consisted of a bare overhead light and a shower stall with no shower curtain, the furniture was a scuffed melange of pieces from the 70's, and the refrigerator/minibar didn't work.  Between the moldy smell emanating from the bathroom and from the fridge, it was rather pungent in there. My long-suffering husband ("long-suffering" because I always make him do anything I don't want to do while on vacation, since I do all the legwork) valiantly tried to rouse someone from the enervated staff to come fix the fridge--or at least to bring us a bucket of ice so we could chill our champagne, which we'd envisioned sipping at midnight while gazing at the beautifully lit temples--but to no avail.

Despite these well-documented deficiencies, many guidebooks still list the Villa Athena. Fodor's calls it "pleasant," although not outstanding, and writes that "there's a convivial atmosphere in the bar, where a multinational crowd swaps stories." Judging from our experience, it was more of an angry mob at the front desk, trying in vain to get satisfaction. If any stories were being swapped, they were stories of how crappy their rooms were and how nothing in them worked. At least Frommer's has the decency to admit that the hotel's a pit in desperate need of an overhaul, giving it an "overrated" icon along with a star. And while staying our one miserable night there, we laughed ourselves silly at the blurb on the Villa Athena in our Lonely Planet Sicily guidebook: "Ring ahead if you fancy a night of pampered comfort." Oh man, was that ever a knee-slapper! Even if you'd been staying in youth hostels for a year straight, there is no way in the world that even the most downtrodden backpacker could consider that a night of "pampered comfort". After the giggles subsided, we lay on the none-too-clean sheets, toasting the New Year with warm champagne and the knowledge that Morpheus would soon descend mercifully upon us, after which we could flee the place in the morning.

If you think I'm exaggerating, peruse the reviews of the Villa Athena on TripAdvisor.com. I wish such a resource had existed back in late 2000. It would have saved me the pleasure of shelling out $300 for what one TripAdvisor rater aptly calls "the shabbiest dump we encountered in Sicily." Amen, sister (or brother)! Even our hotel in Scopello, where the bed mattress literally sagged to the floor, was preferable to the Villa Athena. At least the propietress of the Scopello hotel was lovely, charged us only $15, and helped us find a fabulous restaurant for dinner. And her hygiene was impeccable. Things were definitely looking up.

Zen in Berlin: The City's Best Hotel

Dorint Sofitel am Gendarmenmarkt
Charlottenstrasse 50-52

Many of Berlin's "boutique" hotels are exercises in passé, Philippe Starck "avant garde" and self-conscious design: the Sorat Art'otel and the Maritim Pro Arte come to mind. So where to go if the other extreme--the opulent excesses (and prices) of the Berlin Hilton, the Kempinski Hotel Bristol Berlin, or the Hotel Adlon--aren't your style? My preferred hotel in Berlin is the Dorint Sofitel am Gendarmenmarkt, a 92-room hotel that is both lofty and intimate. Although the building's facade still has Jugendstil elements, it's a far cry from its earlier incarnations, including one as a youth hostel in the early 1980s in what was then East Germany. Smack dab in the heart of Mitte, its location can't be beat (these days, you'll be hard-pressed to venture into what was formerly West Berlin), and some rooms have small balconies that overlook the Gendarmenmarkt, a jewel-box square anchored at one end by the Konzerthaus and at the other by the Franzsischer Dom.

The building has been painstakingly transformed by the Dorint chain into an upscale hotel that is artfully minimalist while maintaining an unmistakable edge of luxury. Overall, there is a great continuity to the hotel's design and style that is soothing and tranquil without calling attention to its cleverness. The rooms have all the high-tech accessories you'd expect of a five-star hotel, combined with high ceilings, rich brown and creamy white furniture, luxe linens, marble and wood floors, and understated lighting. The bathrooms are works of art, with a single-paneled door that opens into one area while closing off another, making the best of the rooms' size, which, admittedly, is not large. The hotel's wellness area, on the seventh floor, offers a steam bath, sauna, a state-of-the-art fitness room, and--low and behold--a meditation room. The staff are extremely helpful and friendly, yet unobtrusive.

The hotel, which opened in April 1999, is off Unter den Linden, and within easy walking distance to the Brandenburg Gate, the Pergamon Museum, the Reichstag, the Marienkirche, the Berlin Concert Hall, and other destinations. It's close to Hackescher Markt and Oranienburger Strasse, where many of the best, coolest restaurants can be found, and accessible by bus or metro to the happening areas of Prenzlauer Berg, Friedrichshain, and Kreuzberg. And, should you find yourself craving "Viennese chandeliers, classic antiques, and silk-covered chairs," the Four Seasons is right next door. But if you're anything like me, a drink there will probably send you fleeing back to the Zen-like calm of the Dorint.

Nazim Hikmet at the Four Seasons

Sometimes a building is just a building. And sometimes it isn’t. Take the example of the Four Seasons Hotel in Istanbul. As its Web site tells us, it was “created from a century-old neoclassic Turkish prison in the core of this fabled city.” Yes, a prison, but one just “steps from the Blue Mosque and Topkapi Palace.” A prison in a country where prison conditions have traditionally been, shall we say, less than stellar, but one now outfitted to provide “an atmosphere of personal attention and ease unprecedented in Istanbul.”  One with “just 65 guest rooms and suites [that] frame an open courtyard,” the precise spot where its former occupants—intellectual dissidents, artists, poets, journalists, and others—exercised or contemplated freedom while catching a glimpse of the outside world.

Here is how Pacha Tours describes the Four Seasons: “A neoclassical structure that was built as a prison in 1917, now the only thing that will imprison you is its beauty and luxury.” Savile Tours tells us that “the Four Seasons Istanbul is a Cinderella hotel, its story a tale of imaginative transformation, from a dour prison built 80 years ago to imprison dissidents, to an intimate luxury hotel in the heart of old Istanbul.” I’ll let the poor taste of those statements speak for themselves. For those and other reasons, not even a desire to be at the heart of Istanbul’s glorious Sultanahmet district could ever persuade me to stay at the Four Seasons Istanbul.

I freely admit that I have a great personal interest in the case of this particular edifice. Turkey’s greatest modern poet, Nazim Hikmet, was imprisoned there along with countless others whose names I will never know. In January 1938 he was arrested and sentenced to twenty-eight years in prison on the grounds that military cadets were reading his poems and that he was thus inciting the Turkish armed forces to revolt. His friend, the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, later described Hikmet's account of his subsequent treatment:

     “Accused of attempting to incite the Turkish navy into rebellion, Nazim was condemned to the punishments of hell. The trial was held on a warship. He told me he was forced to walk on the ship's bridge until he was too weak to stay on his feet, then they stuck him into a section of the latrines where the excrement rose half a meter above the floor. My brother poet felt his strength failing him: my tormentors are keeping an eye on me, they want to watch me suffer. His strength came back with pride. He began to sing, low at first, then louder, and finally at the top of his lungs. He sang all the songs, all the love poems he could remember, his own poems, the ballads of the peasants, the people's battle hymns. He sang everything he knew. And so he vanquished the filth and his torturers.”

I include this description because it sums up the remarkable spirit of Nazim Hikmet and his unbreakable idealism, despite years of imprisonment, persecution, censorship, and, ultimately, exile and death after having been stripped of his Turkish citizenship. That spirit also shines forth in his poems, particularly those written in prison. As Carolyn Forché writes in the foreword to Poems of Nazim Hikmet: “If, as the French Resistance poet Robert Desnos has written, the earth is a camp lit by thousands of spiritual fires, Hikmet is among them; if it is true, as Bertolt Brecht believed, that the world’s one hope lies in the compassion of the oppressed for the oppressed, then Hikmet serves as an exemplar of that hope.”

But let us return to the Four Seasons Istanbul, that now-luxurious prison that lends itself so well to remarkably callous advertising copy. When its current occupants gaze into its “pretty garden courtyard,” maybe they’ll take a moment to consider Nazim Hikmet walking there for exercise and perhaps composing this poem:

Today is Sunday.
For the first time they took me out into the sun today.
And for the first time in my life I was aghast
that the sky is so far away
and so blue
and so vast
I stood there without a motion.
Then I sat on the ground with respectful devotion
leaning against the white wall.
Who cares about the waves with which I yearn to roll
Or about strife or freedom or my wife right now.
The soil, the sun and me...
I feel joyful and how.

Translated by Talat Sait Halman
(Literature East & West, March 1973)

And maybe, just maybe, as guests curl up in their happy state of confinement, they’ll hear Nazim whispering in their ear “Some Advice To Those Who Will Serve Time In Prison”:

If instead of being hanged by the neck
          you're thrown inside
          for not giving up hope
in the world, your country, your people,
          if you do ten or fifteen years
          apart from the time you have left,
you won't say,
              "Better I had swung from the end of a rope
                                              like a flag"---
You'll put your foot down and live.
It may not be a pleasure exactly,
but it's your solemn duty
           to live one more day
                         to spite the enemy.
Part of you may live alone inside,
             like a tone at the bottom of a well.
But the other part
          must be so caught up
          in the flurry of the world
          that you shiver there inside
      when outside, at forty days' distance, a leaf moves.
To wait for letters inside,
to sing sad songs,
or to lie awake all night staring at the ceiling
                   is sweet but dangerous.
Look at your face from shave to shave,
forget your age,
watch out for lice
              and for spring nights,
     and always remember
        to eat every last piece of bread--
also, don't forget to laugh heartily.
And who knows,
the woman you love may stop loving you.
Don't say it's no big thing:
it's like the snapping of a green branch
                              to the man inside.
To think of roses and gardens inside is bad,
to think of seas and mountains is good.
Read and write without rest,
and I also advise weaving
and making mirrors.
I mean, it's not that you can't pass
    ten or fifteen years inside
                        and more --
        you can,
        as long as the jewel
        on the left side of your chest doesn't lose its luster!

Trans. by Randy Blasing and Mutlu Konuk (1993) 

My Top 10 Hotels, Thus Far

To me hotels are an integral part of any travel experience. My criteria are straightforward: The hotel must be architecturally interesting; incorporate high-quality design and materials; offer great service; be hip or dignified (but not too too); and go for $300 or less per night. Each month I eagerly await my new travel magazines to see if there are any new gems to be plucked, and far more often than not I’m disappointed.

First, the hotels touted in Travel + Leisure and Conde Nast Traveler (to cite the biggies) are too expensive for my budget: Since when did $400 or $500 a night become the norm? And, truth be told, it’s not only my budget---I’d be willing to splurge for a transcendent experience, but not for what is basically a business hotel with a lot of concierge or spa services I’m not going to use.

Second, the hotels are often in places like Canouan, Dubai, Cancun, Taiwan, and the Maldives---all places that, for one reason or another, are not at the top of my personal list of future destinations.

Third, I seek out unusual, smaller, and often newer properties that often don’t show up in the guidebooks or the Travel + Leisure and Conde Nast Traveler annual readers’ polls of top hotels. Those polls are, by and large, retreads of the previous year’s list, with a few new properties. In Granada, for instance, it’s a sure bet that the top pick will always be the Parador de Granada, which is situated, admittedly, on a coveted spot within the romantic Alhambra grounds, one of my favorite places in the world. But why stay at a parador that charges $310 a night and is booked a year in advance, yet hasn’t invested in its infrastructure in years and has less than stellar service, when you can stay at a nearby five-star hotel that is a luxurious and well-conceived refurbishment of the old Convent of Santa Paula, yet charges only $150? You can always visit the Alhambra on a night tour. Similarly, when in Lisbon, why follow the readers’ poll and stay at the oh-so-predictable Four Seasons Hotel Ritz for $452 a night, when you can stay at the sleek, contemporary Solar do Castelo, built within St. Jorge's Castle walls on the site of the former Alcáçova Palace kitchens, for $250?

It does takes some sleuthing to unearth the gems. And I must confess that I’m secretly pleased (and smug) when Travel + Leisure or one of the other travel magazines touts a find several months later, as was the case with Solar do Castelo and La Sacristia. Finally, two caveats: Properties often change ownership or undergo other revisions, so I strongly suggest that you check out the hotel’s Web site, as well as the comments of recent guests at tripadvisor.com. Also, particularly with the larger hotels, you will need to hunt around on Travelocity or other search engines to get a discounted room rate. 

Following is my current top 10 list, in no particular order:

1.    La Sacristia  (Tarifa, Spain)

2.    Hotel Les Ateliers de l'Image (St-Remy-de-Provence, France)

3.   La Casa de los Milagros  (Oaxaca, Mexico)

4.    Hotel Monasterio  (Cusco, Peru)

5.    Villa Sumaya  (Lake Atitlan, Guatemala)

6.    Hotel Gault  (Montreal, Canada)

7.    AC Palacio de Santa Paula  (Granada, Spain)

8.    Hacienda Puerta Campeche (Campeche, Mexico)

9.    Castle Hotel "Auf Schoenburg"  (Oberwesel, Germany)

10.  Solar do Castelo (Lisbon, Portugal)