Never judge a wine by its label is an adage that doesn’t apply in today’s post. The label in question is pictured above and if you’d like to know the back-story read on.
Wilhelm II was crowned Emperor of Germany and King of Prussia in 1888. He was the last holder of these titles, until Germany decides to restore their monarchy. Two years later the young Kaiser, eldest grandson of Queen Victoria, quarrelled with his Chancellor, Bismarck, and dismissed him, prompting the well known cartoon, Dropping the Pilot. He abdicated at the end of the First World War and died in 1941, in exile in Holland, aged 82.
But we are not concerned with German history. In 1898 the Kaiser visited Lebanon, then part of the Ottoman Empire. He travelled to the Beqaa Valley to see the Roman ruins at Baalbek, where he stayed at the Hotel Palmyra. To celebrate the centenary of his stay the hotel had this wine, from Chateau Musar, especially labelled in numbered bottles. It was still being sold when I visited in 2000. The ruins are spectacular and I am fortunate to have seen them. Here is the Temple of Bacchus, for example.
The Hotel Palmyra is in a small and select category: worst hotels that are actually the best. It opened in 1874 and has had a distinguished list of visitors including Jean Cocteau, some of whose pictures are on the walls. At the even more spectacular ruins in Palmyra, across the border in Syria, the Zenobia hotel is another gem and another place that I was lucky to visit in 2001. Pippa organised this holiday too. We spent a week being driven round Syria in a taxi. Palmyra was almost our last night and we had a farewell drinks party outside the hotel with our driver. He bought a bottle of raki and some pistachio nuts. I felt a bit uncomfortable bringing our own drinks and nibbles but the hotel didn’t seem to notice. The hotel is beside the ruins and the view made up for the noisy camel drivers outside my bedroom window early the next morning. Agatha Christie stayed here with her archaeologist husband. I dread to think what has become of it now.
On the same trip, we went to the Baron Hotel in Aleppo. T E Lawrence stayed there and supposedly shot wild duck from its terrace. It seems he didn’t settle his bar bill and it was framed on the wall. Other guests include Agatha Christie (again), Kim Philby and the Shah of Iran. Unsurprisingly, it closed last year. Here is a picture of the interior. There was a railway service between Aleppo and Istanbul; a great railway journey that I am now unlikely to experience.
The Bela Vista hotel in Macau, a colonial building overlooking the South China Sea, closed in 1999. I played Bridge there in 1986 on the balcony outside my room by the light of a single bulb. It was actually the only bulb that worked and I had to remove it afterwards to put back in my bedside lamp. In the morning there was porridge for breakfast. I have never been to South America but I can imagine similar hotels surviving there. They are hotels I will never forget.
Christopher,
What a tip top post. Without wishing to steal your thunder, may I put in a word for the Candacraig? It is in Maymyo, five hours train journey north east of Mandalay, named after Colonel May of the Bengal Infantry. He was stationed there whilst suppressing an uprising in 1887. He established a thriving hill station to rival Simla. It may now be called Pyinulwin again. I visited the Candacraig in 1977. It was built in 1905 in the style of an English country house (more Ascot than Dorset). It appeared to me that nothing had been touched since the British left in 1948. Very ambitiously, I asked the elderly barman if he could make me a Pimms. Of course he could. The bottle was covered in dust but fortunately the lemonade was fresh. I settled into a well worn leather arm chair and after a few sips, I could hear voices on the tennis court. “Oh good shot, Well played, Bad luck etc.” Moving to look out the window, I could see that the voices were not from 1977.
John,
Many thanks for such a good description of your stay at the Candacraig. It now occurs to me that there must be other such hotels in India. The Ooty Club doesn’t strictly qualify but it would be a pity not to mention it and the Ooty Foxhounds, commemorated by boards in the bar listing the Masters back to 1845. Before Alan points out that there are no foxes in India, let me add that they hunted jackal until 1996 and now are a drag pack.
Christopher
The Bela Vista was resurrected by the Mandarin Group which tarted it up and stripped it of its charm. It played a cameo rôle in Love is a Many Splendored Thing as the place where William Holden takes Jennifer Jones for their naughty weekend. It was all a bit scandalous in 1955.
The Candacraig was still in a time warp when I was taking the obligatory whistle stop tour ’round Burma, clutching a copy of George Orwell’s memoirs. I travelled with the future restaurant critic of New York Magazine who, even then had a refined palate. We had a memorable meal in Mamyo, after which he pronounced Burmese cuisine to be the “second-worst in the world.”
The Hill Club, Nurwara Eliya in Sri Lanka is worth a mention. Built for British planters in 1876 and remodelled later it has the air of a Tudorbethan house near Guildford, but set in misty hills covered with tea plantations. When I visited in 1990 it still had a gentlemen only bar (or perhaps that’s just wistful recollection), anyway it certainly had a bar marked gentlemen only. The bedroom I was in was narrow, austere, with an iron bedstead, clearly for a batchelor, which as it happens I was at the time. There was a golf course nearby with a clubhouse straight out of Surrey, except that the professional there taught me a few strokes, his feet bare. The dining room with a large fireplace served school food type fare. I had been advised to order curry and the other diners looked towards my table enviously. The shades of Somerset Maugham were strong. It may have changed since I was there, I hope not. You do not need to be a member to stay. Sri Lanka has other fine colonial hotels, I think not too changed because for years people would not go there because of the civil war.