Faded elegance of travel
- rnv178
- Jun 19, 2022
- 4 min read
I am beginning to realise that faded elegance is the way of modern travel. So many of the hotels and establishments we visit once had a heyday. That time has now gone, but the modern staff try to keep it alive by talking, marketing and hope. Visitors come, trusting to see something of the past, yet never seeing it. Ballrooms become self-service restaurants, mahogany reception desks are refashioned in plastic, tiled floors are resurfaced with cheaper carpet, while staff are often in transit and no longer full-time professionals with a lifelong career ahead in what is now called hospitality.
Tour groups do not help. Fifty guests arrive, their coach is parked nearby, while meals are a nuisance and not the ceremony they might be. The group descends like locusts. Rolls, ham, and apples are surreptitiously thieved from buffet tables and hidden away as an impromptu packed lunch in the hope that no one notices. The throng, for that is what it seems, is being moved rapidly from sight to sight, because that is why they have come. See this, witness that, do the other. For them the journey is an inconvenience, to be completed as speedily as possible. The important feature is the sight. The location they are staying, its history, its grandeur, are often lost. Anyway, the visitors do not have the time to help develop it further. A black-and-white photograph of a United Kingdom, deceased bigwig stands by reception, for they once visited in earlier times. The hotel hopes the photograph will enhance their reputation and make subsequent guests feel important.
We left Perugia in the morning glad to have visited but sad that it was another example of faded elegance. The tour group at breakfast had been earnestly discussing their timetable. When they had to be where, what they would be seeing, meal breaks, and the member who was feeling unwell and had decided to stay behind.
“I thought she was looking pale,” said one.
“She never really joined in,” said another.
It sounded as if the elderly tourist simply sought a little personal space. Big group travel did not allow that.
Our route to the day’s endpoint of Genoa was less remarkable than earlier legs, but still the dangerous drivers who hooted to get past, even if we were already speeding. We also heard cicadas at a motorway service station, as we neared our destination. It was the first time we had heard them on our journey. We felt welcomed, for some reason, when the cicadas burst into song. There was something friendly about it.
Somehow, we took six hours to complete a journey that should have taken four, but eventually pulled up outside the Hotel Bristol Palace in Genoa. We were not allowed to park on the road itself and had to pull off onto the pavement. Genoa has some of the strictest traffic regulations on the planet and I was glad that our car was at least hybrid, not that electric charging points have been simple to find as we journey, even in eco-friendly Genoa.
Genoa is Italy’s sixth-largest city and from the 12th to 15th Centuries was one of the wealthiest cities in the world. It had a huge maritime influence, as it sits on the Ligurian Sea, and is still the busiest port in the Mediterranean.
Hotel check-in was a disaster, staffed by one harassed male who was busily trying to please a Balkan guest who wished to take a taxi to the coast.
I cracked in the end and asked, at a volume the world could hear, “Are you a tourist guide or can we check in?”
The receptionist looked horrified, the Balkan guest apologised, and soon we were headed to a room. The hotel was constructed in 1905 and is famed for many things, not just the bigwigs who have stayed there. Perhaps most impressive is its elliptical staircase, which extends the full five floors of the building and is a geometric wonder. It is said to have influenced many, including the film director Alfred Hitchcock, who stayed at the hotel on two occasions while filming. I must pray that the rooms he was allocated had thicker walls than our own, as we now know all about the habits of our next-door neighbour.
Christopher Columbus was born in Genoa and lived there as a child. He crossed the Atlantic four times, his expeditions being the first European contact with the Caribbean, Central and South America. His first expedition, sponsored by the Catholic monarchs of Spain, was in 1492, when he made landfall on an island in the Bahamas. I suspect Columbus might disapprove if he saw the Americas now. I wager his views would be unexpected. His house, on the edge of Genoa’s Old Town, is crumbling slightly, and certainly small. Perhaps that was why Columbus chose to leave Genoa, as he was said to have been taller than average. His house, at least what is said to have been his house, for there is little evidence to support it, is certainly not palatial.
Outside Columbus’ house, we came across a couple from the USA. Oregon was their state. For some reason, most of the Americans I have met in recent months have come from Oregon. I asked them if this meant that Oregon was becoming depopulated. They laughed and reassured me that my finding was only by chance. However, they were deeply proud that they were travelling Europe by train, as they felt this was at least something they could do to benefit the planet. They were right, of course, although I chose not to mention that to reach Europe, they would have spent more than ten hours in an aircraft. Somehow, they chose not to mention that. I guess their train travel is at least a little something.
Dinner at the hotel was a disaster, not the food but the overall administration. Our reservation had been lost, so to the restaurant staff we were unexpected, and they nearly sent us away. They did not but continued to remind us of the mishap until eventually they became too busy to bother. The food took a very long time to appear and several who arrived before us were still waiting for their orders when we had finished. To me it showed one feature. It does not matter how grand an establishment may be, and the Hotel Bristol Palace is elegant, the staff are all important. Without good staff, an establishment is headed for failure.
***
Stayed at:
Hotel Bristol Palace
Via XX Settembre 35, 16121 Genova, Italia
Tel: +39010592541
Ate at:
Giotto Restaurant at Bristol Palace, Via XX Settembre 35, 16121 Genova, Italia
Tel: +39010592541
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