Greetings readers, from the Grand Hotel et des Palmes, in Palermo, Sicily.   It’s October and the perfect time of year for Sicily, which I like a lot, as it mostly looks like the set from a Fellini movie in the 1960’s and everything should really be in black and white.

Now THIS hotel is my kind of place, as it’s large in scale and has seen better days and no one has quite owned up to, or realized that it is going downhill fairly fast. I walk through the imposing front door and bump (literally) into French actor Gerard Depardieu, who looks EXACTLY as he does in the movies. Tall, heavyset and with a face that is a mass of crags and canyons. His hair was amazingly long, so perhaps that is needed for a part. He didn’t seem at all impressed to see me, but I shall let that pass.

I quote from the hotel brochure: “Originally the home of the Ingham-Withaker (sic) family (and who were they ??? – I shall have to find out, as they sure don’t sound local and why did they build a big house on the main drag of Palermo to look like a hotel?), the G H et des P has been welcoming visitors since 1874.” And on a mighty Victorian scale too. Imposing lobby, gilded mirrors, potted palms and a mini Basil Fawlty on the desk, definitely into keeping out the riff raft. He surveyed his territory with a very practiced air and I should think half the staff thinks he is God and the other just wish he would retire.  One of those places with pigeon holes behind the imposing and highly polished front desk and the hook for your key, on a proper ring with a small tassel.  I am not in Ving-card land here for sure.  My reservation (“For just one night”?) is found and I produce my passport and credit card, before he has to lower himself to ask for it.

A perfect creaking elevator, with proper rickety doors.  I was expecting an old fashioned elevator operator, but perhaps he had gone to lunch. My room, overlooking a small garden, which is good as the traffic noise out front is loud, is huge, high ceilinged and rather bare – I don’t think Mrs Ingham-Withaker would have found it too cosy. A very basic and really rather threadbare carpet and a couple of floral wing chairs, which when I first sat down to type in seemed to sink almost to floor level, the springs having seen better days (or carried heavier loads). A proper old white-tiled bathroom too, with a great deep Victorian tub, which invited much wallowing later and the largest taps I have ever seen.  They were offset by the smallest piece of soap I have ever seen.

But the piece de resistance is the dining room. They don’t come too much like this anymore, or the geriatric staff. Having been up and about since 04:30 this morning and been to Catania airport, way down in the south east corner of the island and put my people on their plane and then taken an almost 3 hours scenic bus ride across the island, (fantastic small villages straight out of The Godfather) and fueled with not much more than a cup of coffee at 0445, I was starving, but had to wait for the dining room to open at 12:30.

I was greeted by a small man, with the muttering vice (whom I discovered soon, kept himself amused by talking quite loudly to himself). The room is on a lofty, heroic scale with many tables of various permutations seats-wise and what look like totally faux doric columns in the middle and many mirrors. Stiffly starched white table cloths of course and ditto napkins, done in the Bishop’s Mitre fold.  You didn’t think I would know that, did you?

I am the only one there and the two waiters descend upon me. It is ying and yang.  One is short, the mutterer and the other about 6’1 tall, with a correspondingly long nose to look down upon his mate. Their heads are nearly two feet apart when they stand next to each other. And if you think this makes them look like the odd couple, they were soon joined by the Maitre d’Hotel himself and HE made the short one look tall.  It was beginning to look like an act in a circus.  He was also quite put out that their one and only client had managed to sneak in when his back was turned, so he had to come over and inspect me and make sure I had the right menu and ensure that I understood what they had.  As the menu was in both Italian and English, it had not been too much of a problem. He then had to pick up the copy of my order, which had been written down by the short waiter and ensure that all had been correctly noted. This was the epitome of The Fussy Little Man.

Fortunately I had had the foresight to bring a book, as the longuers were indeed expected, but I sneaked peeks at the staff to keep myself entertained. The taller of the shorts, busily talking to himself, had his bum perched slightly on a table. The maitre d’ fussed a lot over his station, rearranging small piles of paper and old bills and looked like he may be in danger of being murdered by the other two, just for being such a pedantic person. Polonius sprang to mind, played by Richard Briers. The tall one stood cave by the kitchen door and stared out into space. Sometimes he lurched across the room and realigned a knife that was slightly out of true (perhaps from his height he had a better overview ?) and then the maître d’ went over and made sure it was done properly. I began to feel like I was an extra in a Pinter play, with me as some form of comic relief, as these three were definitely going in circles around each other. Godot should have come through the door. And I was their only victim. My every move was monitored. Once the water glass was sipped from twice, then someone filled it – exactly as in India, where I think if you sat with your mouth open, they would probably draw up a chair and feed you, nursery fashion.

Anyway, my food arrived, on rather beaten up looking metal platters, everything much garnished, that then had to be decanted on to a plate and it wasn’t very special, but at the same time it fitted the grand surroundings of an establishment a bit gone to seed.   I completed my meal, still as the only diner and was escorted out, with the two waiters holding open the large doors and bowing low.

In the afternoon, I walked the town, which I liked, inspecting both churches and mosques and going off down small side streets, some of which just took me round in circles.  The hotel was so old fashioned that there was a book of matches in the room, with their name and address on.  This is all you need if you get lost and the only person you can see turns out to speak another language.

And that’s where it all ended.