Brief encounter with opulence

Take two very ordinary words: “orient” and “express”, and when you string them together you get something entirely out of the ordinary: Visions of opulent, old-fashioned trains, grand hotels and sumptuous cruise liners.

These offer opulence that anyone who is not a multimillionaire will not grasp, except travel writers. These are able to take the occasional peek behind the curtains of this world of wealth and self-indulgence for a few hours, then return to the real world, write about it all, and weep. Copiously.

I have been fortunate to have experienced three Orient Express hotels. The first was the Mount Nelson in Cape Town. It is outstanding, and now that I live in Cape Town and don’t have to fret about not being able to afford to stay at the Nellie, I do indulge myself every now and then by going to have tea there. Sometimes I do feel guilty about spending the equivalent of the Western Cape’s entire tourism budget on a cup of tea and a spectacular chunk of chocolate cake, but that doesn’t last long.

I have also had the privilege of staying at the Observatory Hotel in Sydney, Australia, another great Orient Express hotel. It is an island of calm on a busy waterfront and where the staff say: “Good morning, sir,” and not “G’day, mate”.

Sorry to say this, Nellie old girl, and to you guys down under at the Observatory, but I have experienced a sister hotel of yours that makes your opulence look motelish by comparison. It’s the magnificent and totally overwhelming Villa San Michele at Doccia, on the hill of Fiesole overlooking the city of Florence in Italy.

What makes it so different? Well, for starters, the façade was sculpted by Michelangelo. The whole place is an Italian national monument, with original artworks dotted all over the place, each worth so much that flogging just one of them could probably pay the purchase price of the Nellie, the Observatory, and a fistful of cruise ships. That does give the Villa San Michele something of a competitive edge.

The original building on this site was a friary founded in the early years of the 15th century by Franciscan friars. The land on which it stood had been donated by a Florentine family, the Davanzatis, who also contributed to the monastery’s upkeep by gifts of woodlands, further buildings and money. The present building, with its imposing loggia, dates from 1600 when it was enlarged and completely renovated by Giovanni di Bartolommeo Davanzati.

The hotel’s reception is in the original chapel, obviously deconsecrated, but the original ornate altar is still there and it took all the willpower I had not to genuflect and bless myself before the manager.

In 1982, Orient-Express Hotels bought the Villa San Michele and the surrounding land. Once more a comprehensive restoration of the buildings was embarked upon, this time with the cooperation of the Florence Fine Arts Authority.

A thorough refurbishment of the first-floor rooms was undertaken over two successive winters, involving the rooms over the loggia in 1997/98, and the Italian garden-view rooms in 1998/99, at which time the secluded, hermitage chapel was renovated and the fresco of The Last Supper beautifully restored. Completed by Nicodemo Ferrucci in 1642 the fresco was designed to decorate the refectory of the then monastery of San Michele. Smoke from the fireplace and candles, steam from the food, and even human breath over the centuries had dulled the colours and obscured the detail.

I was given a grand tour of the hotel after which all I had very little breath left that could still be taken away. My wife and I were treated to a joint birthday dinner in the magnificent restaurant overlooking Florence, and the food was such that I asked to be allowed to take a copy of the menu, which I sleep with under my pillow to this day.

Needless to say, the room rates are spectacular, especially given the abysmal purchasing power of the rand when exchanged to euros. And if you have just shown the slightest interest in finding out what the exchange rates are, I daresay this place will be as much out of your league as it is out of mine.

While I had visions of millions of starving children in Africa as I wandered about shrouded in opulence, I also couldn’t help thinking that this very wealth had resulted in the restoration of something that was sacred in its day.