HotelChatter

A classic hotel doesn't have to be old but it does have to be stubbornly behind the times. Getting on to BA (supposedly the subject of this blog) there are many who would classify, say, the Alvear as a classic. We disagree. The Alvear is a luxury hotel in an old building. Its antique furniture is mostly decorative. It has plasma TVs, modern jacuzzis, and WiFi everywhere, all for the benefit of the modern traveler. It's like a 1930s Bentley that has been refitted with a Toyota engine. A classic hotel, on the other hand, is like a 1930s Bentley which has been sitting on bricks in the garage for the past 40 years. Less useful, more romantic.

A classic hotel must have stories, legends, myths, oddball guests and a hunchbacked porter. Often nothing works in these hotels except the staff, who as a consequence have to work very hard. It must have long dark corridors in which to get lost, rooms that no one has opened in years, and the constant background hum of a poorly maintained electricity generator. Remember the place in the mountains where Jack Nicholson goes on the rampage in The Shining? That's a classic hotel. Lost your room key? No problem, just put an axe through the door and grab the handle.

To sum up, a classic hotel is the kind of place people read about, appreciate, are glad exists, and almost never stay in.

Castelar Hotel Lobby

BA's most classic classic is the Castelar Hotel & Spa, located downtown within sight of the Obelisco. To help us describe this porteño institution we've roped in our good friend Chris Moss, unabashed romantic and probably one of the top ten travel writers to have ever come out of Wigan:

The Castelar Hotel is one of those places that gives me hope. In an age when every hotel's name is prefaced by 'boutique', or 'resort', or 'minimalist' or, worst of all, 'Wallpaper*', the Castelar announces itself as just a hotel, carajo! It has dust in the creases of its skirting boards, simple straight-up Martinis at its bar and the whiff of political conspiracy hanging in the not-smoke-free air. In 1933 Spanish poet and playwright Federico García Lorca bedded down at the Castelar - it was just four years old then, swanky and ostentatious - and was visited in his room by Maria Molino Montero, the young niece of Francisco and Maria Coca (immigrants from Lorca's hometown of Fuente Vaqueros). She was slightly perturbed by the picture of himself he had hung on the walls - in his overalls and holding out his arms in clear reference to Jesus on the Cross. The image of the poet posing as Christ adds to the Castelar's legacy as a hotel that shores up stories of poets and artists in defence against vulgarity. Tangueros often came by to drink and fuck and snort coke here during the Golden Age, and in-the-know dancers still choose the hotel over awful themed joints in corny San Telmo. A correspondent on the Fodor guide's hotel website complains of 'soiled bedcovers'. This is reason enough for spending a night there. Glamorous, rude, fading and grand, the Castelar is a broken old porteño classic.

Hear, hear. And we'd just like to add that if you google for 'soiled bedcovers', the review Chris was alluding to comes top of the list! That takes some doing.

Now, if you'll allow us, we'll append a short and rather scatalogical anecdote to Chris's review, for which we'll have to break house rules and slip into the first person.

My wife and I spent our wedding night at the Castelar. The reason for doing this still eludes us. I'd like to say I have fond memories of the hotel, but I was blind drunk and remember very little. What I have been able to piece together is this. At about midnight a staff member turned up to deliver us our complimentary 'champagne', chocolates and flowers. He asked if he could pour us a glass of bubbly. At that precise moment I projectile vomited onto the scratched walnut panelling that lined the suite. He took that as a 'No thank you, I think I've probably had enough' and calmly poured a glass for my new wife. Then, after checking I was in the recovery position, he went after a mop, bucket and bleach. There was no brouhaha, no owner rushing in screaming at me about the cost of fake walnut, like you'd get in a boutique. After scraping the horrible new mosaic from the wall, this knight in shining tuxedo helped the blushing bride haul my corpse onto the sofa, pocketed his tip and shimmered out. In hindsight, I should have also asked him to make love to my wife since I was clearly out of action for the night.

Ok, so it isn't Sid and Nancy, but it does illustrate an important point: The staff who work in a classic hotel have seen it all before. You can't faze them, you can't shock them. The next morning I went to apologise to the manager about the vomit. 'What vomit, sir?' he replied, with a twitch of a grin and a conspiratorial wink.

Like we said, classic.

(We had hoped to write about a couple of BA's other classic hotels but have run out of time. If anyone's interested, pop the question as a comment and we'll oblige.)