Hamburg
July 25th 2007 08:44
The Treudelberg
I enjoyed my first two days in Hamburg, luxuriating on the outskirts, at the edge of the forest. The Hotel Treudelberg Golf and Country Club is only 10 kilometers from the city centre but it seems a world away. Its roofs and gabled windows look out across a tranquil garden, over a thick curtain of trees into a flawless sky. The “outside world” stays discreetly between the covers of brochures, maps and guides. Life, as it is known to tycoons and top end escapists goes on undisturbed. On one side of the building, behind the closed doors of conference rooms, the machinery of global business ticks and whirrs. On the other, the corridors echo with the muted beat of aerobics from the Fitness Centre and the soft splash of swimmers at the pool. A scent of crèmes and oils drifts under the doors of the Center Estetika and robed wraiths slip noiselessly from sauna to solarium. Outside golfers trundle along a fairway lit vivid green by a bright summer sun and beside it a path leads away to a fairy tale forest. The blue sky, the warm sun, the clear air and the beckoning path outside are irresistible. Feeling like Little Red Riding Hood, but without the basket of goodies for Grandma, I lift the latch on a dark green gate at the back of the hotel and set off along the path. It weaves along, through and around the golf course, under canopies of shady trees, past sunny fields of long grass. There’s a distant thuck of everyday clubs on ordinary golf balls, but it’s underscored with magical birdsong and the mysterious whisper of wind in leaves. At a junction of tracks, a white arrow, on a pitted, mossy, brothers-Grimm rock,
The Treudelberg, Hamburg
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