Maison Delaneau

For a beautiful city that enjoys international fame, Antwerp in Belgium offers very few, top level hotels. One exception is the the luxury Maison Delaneau Boutique Hotel.

So, when the premises next to the former Bed & Breakfast “Slapen enzo” became available, managing director Jeanette Doezé dreamt of combining these two buildings into one luxury hotel.

She found a partner in Luc Dheedene, the man behind the best Antwerp hot spots – Verso and Martini Bar.

Jeanette Doezé’s special knowledge of the travel industry and Luc Dheedene’s trend awareness have resulted in a luxury, boutique hotel – Maison Delaneau.

Boutique Hotel
Under the motto of ‘Small is Beautiful’, Maison Delaneau boasts eleven exclusive rooms and suites, some of which are equipped with a Jacuzzi, an open fire, a private garden or sauna. For the interior design they called upon the services of interior architect Stephan Hommerin. The result is a minimalistic, timeless design in which innovative composition goes hand in hand with natural raw materials and state-of-the-art technology. Moreover, most rooms offer a laptop safe, mini-bar and internet facilities.

Delaneau Spa
All reputable luxury hotels boast a spa area for relaxation and beauty care. This is also the case at Maison Delaneau. The spa is like a haven of peace with delightful massage rooms, a hydro tub, a steam room and wet room.

As the first beauty institute in Belgium, the Spa Delaneau also uses products by REN, a name which beauty addicts will undoubtedly be familiar with. This trendy British cosmetics brand is highly popular with celebrities, such as Kate Moss, and has quickly acquired cult status. Deservedly so, because all REN products are free from parabens and other synthetic ingredients. Its bio-active ingredients guarantee visible skin rejuvenation.

Combined with relaxing facial and body care, this is the crème de la crème. The ‘à la carte’ Delaneau Spa treatments appeal to one’s imagination. A small sample of the treatments available include: Serenity (facial pressure point massage), Day is Done (glycolactic peel mask for radiant skin) or Bliss (a deep body massage using hot and cold lava stones).

In view of the fact that the spa area is also accessible to non-hotel residents, we have also designed some faster treatments, which are ideal for enjoying during a lunchtime break. Under the collective name of ‘Small Wonders’, there is, for example, the ‘Quick Fix (a 30 minute pre-party facial), the Sugar Wax, and the ‘Real Man’ (facial for men, lasting 60 minutes).

Delaneau Salon
Hotel guests enjoy an extensive breakfast in the lounge; an open lounge with a crackling open fire that creates a cosy atmosphere to retreat to on cold days. Non-hotel residents can also use this room to escape from busy city life and enjoy an afternoon tea in a pleasant setting. Delaneau Salon is also perfect to meet up with people for a pre-dinner drink. Its exclusive wines, champagne and exquisite nibbles will tempt even the most demanding of gourmets.

Maison Delaneau
Karel Rogierstraat 18-20, Antwerp
Tel +32 (0)3 216 27 85
info@maisondelaneau.com

Hotel Amigo – Belgium

My favorite company that I have marketed was a high-profile architectural design studio based in Europe. I reported directly to the Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing; a warm, gregarious, and charismatic Belgian man.  He always had a story about snow days in his hometown, near-death sales calls, or the misadventures of an overzealous family member.  We always left our weekly sales and marketing meetings wide-eyed in disbelief.

Even though I know most of his stories are highly exaggerated, that still doesn’t diminish my desire to find out once and for all whether eating the snow in Belgium would burn all excess body fat.  I’d do it in style in Brussels, with the help of Rocco Forte.

Known for classical luxury and elite extravagance, Rocco Forte Hotels is a family of 13 highly individual properties spread out all over Europe; each hotel features the unique style and ambiance from which the local city inspires.

Located in the heart of Brussels sits one of the thirteen: Hotel Amigo.  Rated as the best luxury hotel in Brussels, Hotel Amigo enjoys the view of the Grand Place and within easy walking distance to the artistic antiques district of Le Sablon.

In celebration of the much anticipated Steven Spielberg film, “The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn,” Rocco Forte’s Hotel Amigo and Moulinsart are rolling out the red carpet for Belgium’s favorite comic book hero and his loyal sidekick Snowy with two new exciting Tintin experiences.

Armed with a detailed Tintin map provided by the hotel, guests would begin their adventure tracing Tintin’s steps around the Belgian capital and walk through the Brussels’ park depicted in King Ottokar’s Sceptre, visit the concert hall that inspired the Hippodrome in The Seven Crystal Balls, and browse antiques at the daily flea market on the Place du Jeu de Ball – the setting for the film’s opening scene in which Belgium’s national hero buys his best friend Captain Haddock a model ship.

Guests can also visit the Hergé Museum, located 30 minutes from Brussels’ city center.  With tickets included in both of Hotel Amigo’s Tintin experiences, guests can explore this astounding piece of architecture which contains more than 80 original print plates along with a plethora of documents and photographs, highlighting the work and life of the comic book mastermind.

I encourage you to visit Hotel Amigo in Brussels.  If not for Tintin’s adventures, the scenery, or the bliss of opulence, then surely for the rumored fat-dissolving snow, however little there are.

Poor Brussels. The attention it gets as capital of the European Union and home base of NATO suggests a city of functionaries and bureaucrats: stolid, good for business (and breweries), but hardly the center of style.

That moniker belongs to Paris, of course—except among the cognoscenti, who know that Brussels, the 1,000-year-old city of a million-plus, can be more radical in fashion, more adventuresome in cuisine, and much more fun to plunder for antiques.

To go antiquing in Brussels is to bask in civility and ease—especially if you’ve ever suffered the apathy of the 2,500 dealers at Paris’s legendary Marché St.-Ouen. Stay hard by the Gothic, gilded Grand Place—a square called one of the most beautiful in the world by no less than Victor Hugo.

At the Hotel Amigo (1–3 Rue de l’Amigo, 32-2/547-4747; hotelamigo.com; doubles from $335), you’re barely a half-mile walk from the best dealers in and around the Place du Grand Sablon, also a cobbled and gabled but far more sweeping square.

For decades the premier address for fine antiques, the Place du Grand Sablon is still the site of a small weekly antiques market (all day Saturday, half a day on Sunday) that sets up in jaunty red and green–striped canvas stalls.

Here are mostly small wares of good quality but modest distinction—brass candlesticks, clocks and boxes, porcelain and silver for the table.