Clementina, Lady of the Manor

GRAND ALBERGO TIMEO  --Taormina, Sicily

Clementina 1978

       When I met Clementina La Floresta, she  had already been at the Timeo for nearly seventy years.  She was closing in on ninety and her mind had begun to waver, but she was often alert and retained a sharp memory for the distant past. 

She was the Timeo’s owner, at least she had been.  Her adoring daughter and son-in-law had long since taken over the day-to-day management, but Clementina was usually there, seated regally in the lounge, ready to chat with guests, effortlessly diving in and out of a number of languages.

She had arrived in Sicily shortly after her eighteenth birthday to marry the owner of the esteemed Timeo, already a Taormina landmark after several decades of activity.

Portrait of Marcel Proust 1892

“I remember as if it were yesterday,” she once told me.  “My very first week in the hotel, I had the formidable task of having to escort Monsieur Marcel Proust into the dining room for dinner.  I was shaking like a leaf.”

She soon accustomed  herself to being the Timeo’s official hostess, and found herself charming the likes of Andre Gide and D.H. Lawrence (who is said to have written much of Lady Chatterly's Lover there); later Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni.  Not to mention the Vanderbilts, the Rothschilds and the Krupps.

At a time when world travel was reserved for the privileged, the Timeo was for connoisseurs.

In the ensuing years when I would return at Christmas, she was less chatty, but she always greeted each guest graciously with a smile, still very much the lady of the manor.

On my last visit in the early eighties, her daughter told me, with tears in her eyes,  the hotel was being sold.   It was a family tragedy, she said.  She and her sisters were born there; it had been created in 1873 by their grandfather..

Interior of the Timeo today (photo Orient Express)

There had been tensions between the siblings, and two other sisters, long since expatriated to Rome and Milan,  had preferred their part in cash.  The property was now worth much more than the hotel, itself.  It had its loyal following, but theirs had been an old- fashioned management, often wary of the modern world.    They hadn’t even wanted a pool, fearing it would attract a less desirable clientele.   

The sale had one important stipulation: Clementina and her family were to remain on the premises, and the old lady was never to be told the Timeo had been sold. 

In less than a year the hotel had closed down.  The buyer ended up in prison, though I never knew why.  It remained shut for many years thereafter, before being purchased by the Orient Express company.

I like to think that Clementina died in her own bed.    

Your input is welcomed:  frank.pleasants@libertysurf.fr

[Photos are mine, unless otherwise credited]

Next :  A Date With Destiny ... Florence, The Excelsior

Room Without Bath

HOTEL TIMEO, Taormina, Sicily

 

Taormina (photo Google archives)

     I took a package trip in the Spring of 1978, where I found myself at a modern resort built into the rocks on the Ionian Sea along the northern coast of Sicily.  Taormina was located about a mile’s walk up the mountainside.

While exploring the village, next to the magnificent ancient Greek theatre with Mount Etna in the distance, I stumbled across a discreet and beautiful hotel called the Timeo, almost hidden down a little tree-lined walkway.   At that time it was the most exquisite place I had ever seen, entirely surrounded by its lush Mediterranean gardens with a memorable smell of flowers and tangerines.

Rocco 1978

I went there for dinner, and was blown away by its Italian kind of understated elegance.   The tablecloths were pink, and Rocco, the maître d’hôtel, and his waiters were dashing around as though their life’s mission was to see that I was comfortable and contented.  There was no air conditioning, and the overhead fans complemented a warm evening breeze.

Italy was still cheap in those days.  Only now do I realize to what extent that dinner was a kind of awakening to the accessibility of some of the finer things in life.

This was in May, and I came back to Paris with such enthusiasm for Taormina and the Timëo that I began immediately preparing a trip there for the following Christmas.   

My friend, Ann, who started out briefly with me in the art business (and later committed suicide), wrote to the hotel for us months in advance.   She called one day, crestfallen, to tell me there were no rooms available except two connecting garden (i.e. semi-basement) singles without private bath.

I thank my lucky stars that we did not flinch.  Actually, we did flinch, but private bath or not, we ultimately decided to go ahead.

 Entrance to the Timeo today (photo G. Dall Orto)

 As it turned out, the adjoining rooms were delightful, opening directly onto a private terrace in the garden, brimming over with the aforementioned aromatic tangerine trees.

The absolute cherry on the cake was the bathroom, located directly across the hall about two and a half feet from my door, reserved for our exclusive use.  For that matter, the entire little hall was for our private use, as ours were the only rooms on it.

When we wanted a bath, we had a special cord to pull, and the chambermaid came literally running with an armful of plush towels and various little linen things which she placed strategically so our bare feet would never have to touch the magnificent, chilly marble floor. 

 And, yes, she ran my bath for me every day. 
  

Anne, Paris 1972

   [photos are mine unless otherwise credited]

SIDEBAR:  TRAVELING THROUGH ITALY ON THE TRAIN

Vintage train poster, Paris' Gare St Lazare circa 1948

      With the meager earnings from our first art show, Ann and I set out on the trip to Taormina in 1978.  It started a kind of tradition of making the 1500-mile trek by train every Christmas for the next few years.

En route for Venice (photo A. Gazères)

The second year to Sicily was the most exceptional, when we graduated to the rather pampered environment of the Italian rail’s wagone letto, the luxuriously old fashioned private sleepers still in vogue on long distance Italian trains at that time.

Simplon Express poster

We would invariably make the three-day journey in several stages, usually beginning with an overnight trip from Paris to Venice.  In those days there was still a formal dining room with two dinner services best booked in advance.  I have a memory of the whitest and most beautifully starched linen, and though the food was not magnificent, it was never less than a taste of special luxury.

After a couple of nights in Venice, we set out on the day trip south to Florence or Rome, or both.  From there, we would embark a few days later for Sicily on the Bellini Express.   Sometime around dawn, the sleeping cars would board directly onto a ferry boat at the Strait of Messina without our even having to awaken, let alone get out of bed. 


Coffee was served in our compartment a few minutes before pulling into the old fashioned Taormina station.  My most pronounced memory of that yearly trip is of the almost overpowering early-morning aroma of tangerine blossoms, even before leaving the train.  

Taormina Station today (Photo Google)

                                                                                                  

The trips were not always without incident.  On the notoriously lawless Simplon Express connecting Venice with Paris, robberies occurred weekly if not daily (particularly in a sort of legal no-man's land on the edges of both countries’ borders where police jurisdiction was hazy), and we were once dispossessed of our entire vacation funds. 

But even that bit of non-violent drama added another zest of adventure to our holiday, and a trip to the Venetian police station, located within the Santa Lucia train station, remains an exciting memory.

We naturally never recuperated our stolen money, but considered ourselves lucky to have sold enough paintings that year to reimburse ourselves.  It was before the time of withdrawing cash with credit cards, and we had to rely on friends to wire new funds.  And as future trips loomed on the horizon, it gave us an extra incentive to succeed in our new hobby-business.  

Night Train, painting by Belgian artist Paul Delvaux

Your input is welcomed:  hotel-musings@hotmail.fr

[Photos are mine, unless otherwise credited]


Next :  "Traveling On My Own, The Piccadilly"

12 - The Beginning and the End of Duncan

GRAND ALBERGO TIMEO  --Taormina, Sicily

Duncan at the Timeo 1980

             Duncan was conceived at the Timeo Hotel.  At least that is the story he told. 

Americans of  means, his parents came to Europe on their honeymoon a year or so before the outbreak of the First World War.  They spent a season  in Taormina and established a lifelong affection with the Timeo.

The Timeo garden terrace today (photo Orient Express)

 Duncan in 1980 had more than continued the tradition.  A hypochondriac and a perpetual depressive, he had pretty much given up on life and had been living in a room at the Timeo for several years when I met him.

An indiscreet hotel manager confided that Duncan was “not too keen for the ladies” and that his friend had left him several years previous, which had precipitated the permanent move into the Timeo.

He had once been a professional photographer, and had first come to Taormina in the late forties to photograph the majestic mountain and seascapes.

von Gloeden (google)

Taormina historically had an attraction for the gay community.  Before the turn of the 20^th century, the renowned German photographer Wilhem von Gloeden established a somewhat sulphurous reputation in Taormina, photographing local shepherd boys in the nude, often imitating the poses of Greek and Roman statues. 

Early Capote (google)

Oscar Wilde was one of the first British dandies to visit the hilltop town.     Shortly after the end of the Second World War, Truman Capote led a contingent of jet-setting artists there.  He spent over a year, which he wrote about in his essay “Fontana Vecchia.”   

Duncan first arrived at the Timeo at about this time.

All of the Anglo Saxons and most of the Italians staying at the hotel knew him.  He enjoyed telling guests how unhappy he was and how ineffectual was the lithium he took every morning.  Despite his seemingly permanent state of depression, he never left his room without jacket and tie.

  Taormina was no longer exclusively reserved for the happy few.  “Look at those dreadful tour groups”, he said one day, taking his daily stroll down the Corso.  “They all give me the creeps.”  The world was changing, and neither Duncan nor the Timeo wished to follow suit.

“When I wake up, I think ‘Oh, God, no, not another day, I cannot stand another day on this earth !”

The hotel’s concierge sent me a postcard a few months after my last trip there, reporting that the “grim reaper” had finally paid Duncan a visit. 

Corso Umberto, Main Street Taormina (photo Liv-Life)

-o-

A Few Randon Timeo Faces

Anne

 Of all the many photos I seem to remember taking during my stays at the Timeo, only a few remain.  

Claudia

Urzio

Mario

A few years ago, I had the bright idea of getting rid of several boxes of old memorabilia, including clippings and notebooks ... and many photos.   At that time I hadn't looked at them in at least two decades, and I couldn't find a convincing reason to keep them. 

 I was a little obsessed with the memory of my mother on her deathbed, sifting through boxes of family photos, sorting things for different family members and friends to be dispatched after her death.  I couldn’t understand why she never seemed to finish, until I realized that those boxes of memorabilia were somehow the only thing keeping her alive. 

  Although there was nothing exactly negative about this, I did not wish to imagine myself in similar circumstances.  I had enough of an attachment for the memories that those miscellaneous papers documented that I somehow didn't like the idea of them being thrown away by someone else when I would no longer be around or in charge. 

So I chucked out a good part of my old souvenirs and held back a handful of photos for no specific reason.   They are pretty much all that remain of my Timeo-people memories.   Just a few little bits and pieces:  

Maria

 Maria was an English spinster, whose traveling companion (whom we never actually saw) was confined to her room with a sudden, serious illness.  She joined us for Christmas dinner, and I am thoroughly ashamed to say we were most unhappy when she continued to join us in the days that followed.

Pier Luigi

Pier Luigi and Suzanne

     Pier Luigi met his French friend Suzanne at the Timeo every year for a holiday vacation.  He was, according to Suzanne, recovering from a serious  nervous breakdown, though he always seemed in total control.

    





The Augers were an Anglo-American couple, regular returning guests at the Timeo.  Hugh, a rather bombastic retired army major,  was to our eyes --to Anne's and mine-- foolishly pompous.  Betty, despite a softer, warmer facade, bore a sometimes uncanny resemblance in her manner of being and flat American accent to Wallis Simpson, Duchess of Windsor. 

    

The Augers

There was undoubtedly a story somewhere behind each of these faces.  However, the above jottings represent  the extent of my memories.  So the Timeo vignettes end today with Duncan.

Your input is welcomed:  hotel-musings@hotmail.fr

Next Friday:  Silver Spooned Children ...

 [Photos are mine unless otherwise credited]

7 - Clementina, Still Lady of the Manor

GRAND ALBERGO TIMEO  --Taormina, Sicily

Clementina 1978

       When I met Clementina La Floresta, she  had already been at the Timeo for nearly seventy years.  She was closing in on ninety and her mind had begun to waver, but she was often alert and retained a sharp memory for the distant past. 

She was the Timeo’s owner, at least she had been.  Her adoring daughter and son-in-law had long since taken over the day-to-day management, but Clementina was usually there, seated regally in the lounge, ready to chat with guests, effortlessly diving in and out of a number of languages.

She had arrived in Sicily shortly after her eighteenth birthday to marry the owner of the esteemed Timeo, already a Taormina landmark after several decades of activity.

Portrait of Marcel Proust 1892

“I remember as if it were yesterday,” she once told me.  “My very first week in the hotel, I had the formidable task of having to escort Monsieur Marcel Proust into the dining room for dinner.  I was shaking like a leaf.”

She soon accustomed  herself to being the Timeo’s official hostess, and found herself charming the likes of Andre Gide and D.H. Lawrence (who is said to have written much of Lady Chatterly's Lover there); later Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni.  Not to mention the Vanderbilts, the Rothschilds and the Krupps.

At a time when world travel was reserved for the privileged, the Timeo was for connoisseurs.

In the ensuing years when I would return at Christmas, she was less chatty, but she always greeted each guest graciously with a smile, still very much the lady of the manor.

On my last visit in the early eighties, her daughter told me, with tears in her eyes,  the hotel was being sold.   It was a family tragedy, she said.  She and her sisters were born there; it had been created in 1873 by their grandfather..

Interior of the Timeo today (photo Orient Express)

There had been tensions between the siblings, and two other sisters, long since expatriated to Rome and Milan,  had preferred their part in cash.  The property was now worth much more than the hotel, itself.  It had its loyal following, but theirs had been an old- fashioned management, often wary of the modern world.    They hadn’t even wanted a pool, fearing it would attract a less desirable clientele.  

The sale had one important stipulation: Clementina and her family were to remain on the premises, and the old lady was never to be told the Timeo had been sold. 

 

In less than a year the hotel had closed down.  The buyer ended up in prison, though I never knew why.  It remained shut for many years thereafter, before being purchased by the Orient Express company.

I like to think that Clementina died in her own bed.    

-o-

PHOTOGRAPHING TAORMINA

     In those Timeo years, I had a horror of being taken for a tourist, and I tended to avoid carrying a camera in public places.

It was foolish, as I was certainly never taken for a native, no matter where I went nor how hard I tried.  I always enjoyed posing people for my hotel «portraits», but decided that scenic vistas and seascapes were best left to the postcard artists.

Unfortunately, I didn't bother to keep any postcards either.

For those who might be curious to see a bit more of Taormina, here are a few mostly black and white photos from the first part of the last century. Though well before I discovered Sicily, they better reflect the Taormina I knew than more recent photos with lots of cars and hordes of tourists (neither of which I recall from my winter trips there).

Towards the end of this two-minute slideshow are three turn-of-the-century pictures of the Timeo.  The vast terrace with its inimitable Grecian columns, majestically framing a snow-capped Mount Etna, is much as I remember.  Unfortunately, this outdoor solarium has since been transformed into a restaurant and swimming pool.

Needless to say, none of these photos are by me.  To enter, click on thumbnail below:

                                                                                         

                                              

click here

 

[Photos are mine, unless otherwise credited]

 

Your input is welcomed:  hotel-musings@hotmail.fr

Next Friday:  An Appointment With Destiny at the Hotel Excelsior, Florence (and still more from the Timeo at a later date)