Just when I thought things could not get any stranger...those plucky Canadian hoteliers, The Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts, have planted a 297-room luxury hotel smack dab in the middle of ground zero of one of the core founding members of Arbustoboi's "Axii (I think there are multiple now) of Evil®".
Damascus, Syria.
Some of the amenities of this glorious facility, the first of its kind built in the Syrian capital in over a quarter century (below the fold):
- 297 guest rooms, including 66 suites
- A variety of dining options, including Syrian fine dining at Al Halabi, Italian cuisine at Il Circo and international cuisine at Safran; refreshments also offered at X.O. lounge, Kithara lobby lounge, and the Pool Bar; shaded outdoor dining, as well as 24-hour In-Room Dining
- Luxurious spa with four treatment rooms and a variety of rejuvenating treatments
- Health Club with state-of-the-art fitness equipment and separate steam rooms for men and women
- An outdoor swimming pool, complemented by an outdoor whirlpool
- Prestigious downtown location with shops, restaurants and private residences sharing the new mixed-use complex
- 1,598 square metres (17,201 square feet) of conference and function space
I wonder if the place has a hardened bunker complex underneath and if the rooms bugged by the various and sundry Syrian mukhabarat? Swarmed by Russian arms manufacturing oligarchs?
Only Nixon could go to China, they say.
Perhaps Dubya will have a nice rest from all the hard work in the Presidential Suite at the Damascus Fours Seasons some sunny day soon...then again who knows what our Dear POTUS will do with the Syrian Baathist regime.
Seems like the most reasonable thing going in the region, next to Jordan.
Just hope Isadore Sharp and Co. took out a special rider on their insurance policy on this little bit of Xanadu in the midst of Southwest Asia...GBU-10's are so very messy.
Then again the hotel is in the midst of the historical section of Damascus (you can't swing a dead cat in that part of the world without hitting any...history that is).
Perhaps that is protection enough.
Doubtful...