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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,

points me in two directions. Close by, there’s the sound of a barking dog, a splash and the sound of wings rising from water. Two big white birds flap with an outraged squawk above the trees. They hover, then turn and drop further down. Straight ahead, through the trees there’s a shaft of light. I follow a pattern of smudged footprints away from the path, across the damp earth to a clearing and a tiny lake set in steep banks. Sunshine freckles its dark surface, where a dog paddles, trailing a v of wake, towards a circle of disapproving ducks. I pick up the path again and follow it round the lake, passing only a company of dogs on a dogs’ day out and some serious, stringy-legged hikers spiking their way, with ski-poles, over humps and hollows, tree-roots and potholes. Far off, there are voices, the distant desperate whistles of lost dog owners and the faraway drone of an engine. The path takes me back to the Treudelberg lawn where tall trees stir gently against the perfect sky and a fountain patters softly on a reed fringed pond. I sink into a deck chair and watch the play of light on the leaves. Just when I’m wondering whether life could be more perfect, a shadow falls across the lawn beside me and a waiter in white jacket and bow-tie offers me champagne.

Hamburg

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