亞洲奢華酒店豔驚巴黎 美景一覽無遺

The early 20th-century building on the corner of Paris’s Avenue Kléber and Avenue des Portugais has undergone myriad transform¬ations since it first opened as the Hotel Majestic in 1908. At one time, it served as offices for France’s defence ministry; then as the headquarters of Germany’s high command in Paris during the second world war. In 1973, it was the venue for the signing of the Paris Peace Accords, which marked the end of the Vietnam war.

位於巴黎克雷貝爾大街(l'avenue Kléber)與葡萄牙大街(Avenue des Portugais)拐角處的大樓興建於20世紀初，首先是美琪酒店(Hotel Majestic)於1908年在此開業，從那以後，這幢大樓“改換了無數次門庭”。曾幾何時，它是法國國防部辦公大樓所在地；二戰期間，它又成爲德國駐巴黎最高指揮部總部。1973年，《巴黎和平協定》 (the Paris Peace Accords) 在此簽署，該協定標誌着越戰正式結束。

Walk past its grandiose entrance today, and its brand-new bolt-on glass portico and two hulking Chinese lions on either side of the main steps are signs that the former Majestic has just undergone another change.

如今走過它氣勢恢宏的大門時，嶄新的螺栓緊固式玻璃門廊以及門兩邊主臺階上兩隻中國風格的大石獅子活生生地表明昔日的美琪酒店所在地又更換了新主人。

Last month, the building reopened as the Peninsula Paris, the Hong Kong-based hotel group’s first venue in Europe. With a total investment of nearly 800m (460m to purchase the building and 338m for its refurbishment), the Peninsula Paris is one of the biggest and flashiest hotel projects ever undertaken in the French capital. L’Oiseau Blanc, its aviator-styled rooftop bar and restaurant, offers sumptuous views of the city.

不久前，大樓重新開業，這次的新主人是巴黎半島酒店(Peninsula Paris)，它是總部位於香港的集團在歐洲開業的首家酒店。酒店總投資近8億歐元（其中4.6億歐元買下整幢大樓，花費3.38億歐元進行重新裝修）。從機艙風格的樓頂酒吧與餐廳L’Oiseau Blanc向四周俯瞰，巴黎的美景一覽無遺。

But it is not alone. Within a relatively small radius of the Peninsula, near the Arc de Triomphe, two other new five-star hotels have opened since 2010. On the Rue Saint-Honoré, one of the city’s go-to streets for high-end shopping, the Mandarin Oriental offers top-rate rooms and suites looking over a verdant central courtyard for 925 a night.

但這樣的絕佳酒店比比皆是。自2010年以來，離半島酒店只有咫尺之距、位於凱旋門(Arc de Triomphe)附近的另外兩家五星級酒店又相繼開業。在巴黎高檔購物去處聖奧諾雷街(Rue Saint-Honoré)，文華東方酒店(Mandarin Oriental)的高檔客房與豪華套房可以俯眺酒店內綠草如茵的四合院，每晚的入住費用爲925歐元。

In the more sedate 16th arrondissement, guests can relax at the Shangri-La Hotel in a building that was once home to Prince Roland Bonaparte, great-nephew of Napoleon. The hotel has the best pool of any five-star hotel in Paris and offers seductive views of the Eiffel Tower. Bonaparte’s fully restored rooms alone are worth the visit.

在更爲靜謐的第16大區，嘉賓們可以愜意地入住香格里拉酒店(Shangri-La Hotel)，這兒曾一度是拿破崙侄孫羅蘭•波拿巴王子(Prince Roland Bonaparte)的府第。酒店的泳池冠絕整個巴黎的所有五星級酒店，在此還可眺望艾菲爾鐵塔(Eiffel Tower)的雄姿。單單入住徹底翻新的波拿巴王子的房間，遊客們就已不虛此行了。

What all these hotels have in common, beyond their Asian roots, is the sort of modern, high-end facilities that a new class of mega-rich international tourists – many of them from emerging economies such as China, Russia and Brazil – had looked for among Paris’s old guard of top-notch hotels.

除了均來自亞洲外，這些酒店的共性就是現代高端設施一應俱全，它們正是新涌現的全球富豪階層（很多來自中國、俄羅斯以及巴西等新興國家）在巴黎老牌頂級酒店中到處尋覓的目標。

The new Asian presence in Paris’s hotel scene has sent a tremor through some of the most famous names in Parisian hospitality, inducing an initial period of collective introspection – in much the same way that France’s recent economic malaise has forced its residents to ponder the country’s fading grandeur in a faster-moving, more competitive world.

亞洲酒店集團最新進軍巴黎，“震動”了巴黎的一些最知名酒店，初期還引發了集體性反思——這與近期法國經濟萎靡不振迫使國民深刻反思國家在快速發展、競爭激烈的全球環境中地位每況愈下如出一轍。

For the majority, it has also served as a wake-up call, forcing them to undertake the biggest investments in decades and a rush to turn rooms into suites and gymnasiums into spas.

對於多數酒店來說，這也如同震耳發聵的警示，迫使巴黎本地酒店在未來幾十年裏進行大規模投資，抓緊時間把普通客房改造成豪華套間以及把健身房改建成spa房。

This year, the Bristol completed a six-year renovation to bring it up to date with the demands of today’s ultra-rich. The Ritz, which closed for a 140m revamp in 2012, barely a year after the Shangri-La and the Mandarin Oriental barged into Paris, will not reopen until 2015 – a year later than expected. Meanwhile, on the corner of Place de la Concorde, a seven-storey temporary office block housing architects, engineers and foremen provides just one clue as to the scale of renovation taking place at the Hôtel de Crillon.

今年，Bristol酒店爲期六年的改建工程完工，以滿足當今富豪的現時需求。麗茲酒店(The Ritz)2012年歇業後，進行了總耗資達1.4億歐元的翻修（距離香格里拉與文華東方酒店進軍巴黎不到一年時間），並將於2015年重新開業，比預期的時間晚了一年。與此同時，在協和廣場(Place de la Concorde)邊角上，臨時搭建了一幢七層辦公樓，建築設計師、工程師以及領班濟濟一堂，克利翁酒店(Hotel de Crillon)的改擴建規模可見一斑。

On Avenue Montaigne, Paris’s shopping street par excellence for luxury brands such as Louis Vuitton, Prada and Hermès, the Hotel Plaza Athénée has just reopened after a 10-month, 200m facelift – 100m for the purchase of adjoining properties and another 100m to revamp rooms, restaurants, spa and bar.

蒙田大道(Avenue Montaigne)上的雅典娜廣場酒店(Hotel Plaza Athénée)經過爲期10個月、總投資2億歐元（其中1億歐元用於購入緊臨的房產，另外1億歐元用於客房、餐廳、spa以及酒吧的重新裝修）的翻新後，剛剛重新開業。蒙田大道是巴黎著名的購物街，專售路易威登(Louis Vuitton)、普拉達(Prada)以及愛馬仕(Hermès)等奢侈品牌。

François Delahaye, its general manager and once butler to the Duke of Westminster, told me that the most important decision he took during those months was to keep every one of the hotel’s 550-odd staff on full-time pay. “I didn’t want to shoot myself in the foot by allowing the Peninsula and the others to hire them,” he said.

雅典娜廣場酒店總經理佛朗索瓦•德拉埃耶(François Delahaye)曾當過威斯特敏斯特公爵(Duke of Westminster)的管家，他告訴我重新裝修期間，自己做出的最重大決定就是確保酒店的550多名員工都能領取全額工資。“我不希望半島及其它酒店把我的員工‘挖走’，從而自毀長城，”他對我說。

So what does Paris’s new, more competitive hotel landscape look like? I stayed at two of them – old and new – to find out. Of the new guard, the Peninsula, with its 200 rooms and suites sets the standard. Even those that are not suites, which go for about 1,000 a night, are quite spacious – a rare thing in Paris.

那麼，如今巴黎更具競爭力的新型酒店究竟如何？我入住其中的兩家（一家老牌酒店與一家新建酒店）以一探究竟。就新酒店而言，擁有200間客房及豪華套房的半島酒店已設立了標準。即便非豪華套間（每晚的費用約爲1000歐元）都異常寬敞，這在巴黎實屬鳳毛麟角。

The lines are clean and in a style somewhere between art deco and modern business functionality. The colours run cool with plenty of black, grey and cream. Everything is tasteful but also a little sober. Save for the nail dryer built into the wall of each walk-in dressing room, the feel is predominantly masculine.

房間內的輪廓線乾淨整潔，風格介於阿泰科與現代實用型商務之間。客房內的色彩包括了黑色、灰色以及淡黃色，時尚感十足。一切顯得既美觀又素雅。除了可走進人的更衣室牆上固定的烘乾指甲的機器外，整個客房的主基調陽剛氣十足。

Yet just when you start to think that this is a box (albeit a spacious one with complimentary soft drinks from the minibar) of a hotel room, two things change your mind. The first is a magnificent oval-shaped bathroom, clad in black-and-white marble with a deep, generous bathtub as its centrepiece.

然而，諸位剛覺得房間猶如大盒子一般（雖說客房寬敞，而且小冰箱裏還放着免費飲料），兩樣設施會立馬改變您的看法。第一是高大上的橢圓形浴室，地面鋪着黑白色大理石，其中最引人注目的就是大浴缸。

Throw in a splash-proof television, touchscreen console to control lighting – the “spa” setting, with its low lights and mood music, is gimmicky but fun – and even an Asian-style lavatory seat with its own heating and water jets, and the chances are that you may not want to leave.

錦上添花之物還包括防水電視以及觸摸式燈控器（儼然spa配置，昏暗的燈光以及烘托氣氛的音樂，儘管噱頭十足，但樂在其中），甚至還配備了安裝自熱與水噴系統的亞式馬桶座，諸位最後很可能會流連忘返。

The Peninsula’s second coup is a tablet that allows you to control everything. This is entirely different DNA from those restaurants and bars that hand you their menus arranged in often bewildering sub-menus on iPads. The Peninsula’s interface, designed by the group’s own technology team in Hong Kong, is simple, attractive and functional. At a touch, you can open or close the curtains, control the flatscreen TV set, adjust the lighting and tweak the temperature. It is effortless. Refreshingly for a top-dollar hotel, internet is also included.

半島酒店的第二大亮點是提供操控一切的平板電腦。這種做法迥異於那些常規酒店及酒吧，服務員遞上來的菜單通常由眼花繚亂的分菜單編排而成，並在iPad上顯示。半島酒店的界面既簡潔、好看又實用，由集團位於香港的技術團隊親自設計。輕輕一觸摸屏幕，就能收起或拉下窗簾、操控平板電視、調節燈光亮度以及微控溫度。一切顯得輕而易舉。這些高價酒店還免費提供因特網，着實讓人耳目一新。

As Nicolas Béliard, the Peninsula’s general manager, told me, “We consider internet to be a basic and necessary service for our guests”. Astonishingly in 2014, many of his competitors do not share his views.

半島酒店總經理尼古拉•貝利亞德(Nicolas Béliard)對我說：“我們認爲因特網是必備的基本服務”。令人詫異的是，時至2014年，他的很多同業競爭對手並不認同他的觀點。

Close by, but light years away in its approach, the revamped Plaza Athénée is in many ways the antithesis of the Peninsula – although the ground-floor areas of both have been restored with the same painstaking detail to the faithful preservation of the buildings’ historical appointments.

雅典娜廣場酒店與半島酒店儘管相距不遠，但經營方式卻大相徑庭。改建後的雅典娜廣場酒店在很多方面與半島酒店截然不同——儘管兩家酒店的一樓裝修做到了不厭其煩與事無鉅細，而且忠實地恢復了其歷史原貌。

The oak-panelled walls of the Peninsula’s bar and the magnificent stone work and mouldings of its lobby and ballroom are a case in point. But while the Peninsula’s grand scale impresses, the Plaza Athénée, with its classic red awnings and geranium-filled flower boxes, seduces.

半島酒店用橡木板裝飾牆面的酒吧以及其大廳與舞廳裏富麗堂皇的石雕作品與模製品都是明證。但是，半島酒店的恢宏大氣讓人印象深刻，而傳統紅色遮陽蓬與種滿天竺葵的花盆點綴的雅典娜廣場酒店則讓人想入非非。

From its marble-floored lobby to its multiple mirrors and gilt surfaces, the 103-year-old hotel is ornate, luxurious and, above all, feminine. In other words, it is quintessentially French.

從鋪着大理石的大廳到多重鏡子以及外表面鍍金，擁有103年曆史的雅典娜廣場酒店裝飾華麗、奢侈豪華，最重要的是顯得陰柔嬌美。換言之，它是典型的法國風情。

It also has history. This is where exotic dancer and temptress Margaretha Geertruida “Margreet” Zelle MacLeod, better known as Mata Hari, stayed before she was arrested, charged with espionage and shot by a French firing squad in 1917. More recently, it was the backdrop for the final season of HBO’sSex and the City.

雅典娜廣場酒店同樣頗具淵藪。脫衣舞舞女與風月高手瑪嘉蕾莎•吉爾特伊達•澤利麥克勞德(Margaretha Geertruida “Margreet” Zelle MacLeod)被當局逮捕前一直居住於此，瑪塔•哈麗(Mata Hari)的藝名更爲人熟知，她被控犯有間諜罪，並於1917年被法國行刑隊槍決。後來，這兒又成了美國家庭電影頻道(HBO)的電視劇《慾望都市》(Sex and the City)最後一季（即第六季）的拍攝地。

All of that makes the Plaza Athénée a natural destination for those who can afford it and an unattainable dream hotel for those who cannot – which is probably the vast majority of the city’s 84m visitors a year.

所有這一切讓雅典娜廣場酒店成爲有錢主的首選，也成爲囊中羞澀者可望不可及的夢想酒店——而他們可能在每年光顧這座城市8400萬遊客中佔了大多數。

The rooms, from the magnificent 450 sq metre, 27,000-a-night royal suite, with its seemingly endless real estate filled with Louis XVI-style furniture and oil paintings, to the 1,000 25 sq metre quarters often hired by families for their travelling nannies, are unapologetically old-school.

從總統套間（每晚2.7萬歐元、面積達450平米、房內到處是路易16(Louis XVI)時期風格的古董傢俱與名畫，看似價值連城）到通常供家庭隨行保姆居住的客房（每晚1000歐元、面積爲25平米），雅典娜廣場酒店的客房依然是老派做法（實在執拗之極）。

The Plaza Athénée’s rare stabs at the 21st century generally fail to go more than skin-deep: just turning on the huge flatscreen TV set in the royal suite takes some effort; the new lift, with its Louis Vuitton-inspired brown-and-gold interior, creeks. Those things may deter some of the world’s nouveaux riches. Others probably do not care.

雅典娜廣場酒店罕見的新舉措只是治標不治本：光打開總統套間裏的超大平板電視就要費不少周折；設計靈感源自路易威登、內飾打造成棕色及金黃色的電梯“時常犯毛病”。這些問題可能會讓全球“土豪”望而卻步，而其他富豪則可能不會介意。

Whichever camp you belong to, you cannot turn a blind eye to its renovated Le Bar, a collision of styles so violent that it leaves the visitor with visual whiplash. This is home to an unsettling mix of DJ booth, a boomerang-shaped bar in clear resin and traditional wooden-panelled walls – all co-existing under a ceiling of billowing blue fabric.

遊客不管屬於哪一陣營，都不可能對翻修一新的Le Bar酒吧視而不見，它是各種風格的“激烈碰撞”，給遊客以強烈的視覺震撼感。它由DJ直播間以及用乾淨樹脂和傳統木板牆面打造出的回力鏢形狀的酒吧區雜合而成——在波浪狀藍色織物做成的天花板下，它們相安無事地共存。

To order a drink, just pick up the iPad and wrestle with the digital menu. Alternatively, use your smartphone to “read” the QR code printed on the drinks mats – if you do not have the appropriate program already installed, spend a few more minutes of your evening downloading the app before you can read what’s on offer.

客人若要點飲料，只需拿起iPad，點擊數字菜單即可；也可用自己的智能手機“掃描”飲料墊上印製的二維碼——手機若沒有安裝相應的應用程序，晚上只需多花幾分鐘時間就能把所需程序下載，然後徑直“掃描”所售飲料。

Yet beyond the old-school luxe and, perhaps, Le Bar, there is one clear and irresistible reason to visit the ground floor of the Plaza Athénée: the Alain Ducasse restaurant. Under the Plaza Athénée’s revamp, this three-Michelin-starred marvel next to the hotel’s famous courtyard now offers diners a menu of fish and vegetables served in a long room with three large chandeliers suspended over rounded chrome-backed sofas and contemporary wooden tabletops. Simply put, it is exquisite.

然而，除了老派的奢侈做法以及Le Bar酒吧外，造訪雅典娜廣場酒店的首層，還有一個明確無誤與難以抗拒的原因：那就是艾倫•杜卡斯餐廳(Alain Ducasse restaurant)。雅典娜廣場酒店重裝修後，這家位於酒店漂亮院落旁的米其林三星級高檔餐廳如今給食客提供各種魚和蔬菜的菜單，用餐地點位於長形房間，三頂樹形裝飾燈懸掛於在鉻合金支撐的圓形沙發與現代風格木質桌面上方。一句話，艾倫•杜卡斯餐廳美不勝收。

Lili, the Peninsula’s signature Cantonese restaurant, is a daring leap in time and space – back to an era that feels somewhere close to the 1920s and to a place that looks something like a Chinese opera. It is theatrical and different. And the dishes – braised sliced cod with garlic and shallots, and roasted pigeon marinated with osmanthus – are sublime.

Lili是半島酒店內的正宗粵菜館，無論是在時間還是空間都實現了大膽跳躍——時間恍如感覺回到了上世紀20年代，空間則彷彿置身於京劇中的某個場景，顯得既誇張又不同尋常。無論是蔥燒鱈魚片，還是琵琶乳鴿 (roasted pigeon marinated with osmanthus)，所有菜餚都讓人讚不絕口。

It is tempting to think that hotel perfection would be the love child of the Plaza Athénée’s femininity and the Peninsula Paris’s masculinity. But given that impossibility, it is at least reassuring to know that with the advent of the Asian groups and the response of the incumbents, Paris has more to offer the high-end international traveller than ever before.

這不由得讓人想入非非：盡善盡美的酒店應該兼具雅典娜廣場酒店的柔美以及巴黎半島酒店的陽剛。但鑑於以上可能性不存在，因此至少讓人寬慰的是：隨着亞洲酒店集團進軍巴黎以及原有酒店適時應對，國際高端遊客的酒店選擇比以往任何時候都要多。