36 / WWW.SHORTLIST.COM
TRAVEL
Experience true
decadence in a
Turkish palace
Being a ShortList reader, and therefore
a gentleman of exquisite taste, we’ll
wager you love the little luxuries in life:
a cashmere sweater, a sports watch,
eating out in places with proper napkins.
But what about the big luxuries? The
once-in-a-lifetime, flying-there-in-ahelicopter,
channelling-P Diddy
blow-outs? Unless you’re Donald
Trump or you’ve just won big in
Las Vegas, they don’t come along often,
so when you really indulge, you’ll want
to do it properly.
Step up, the Mardan Palace. This
lavish destination in Antalya, south-west
Turkey, recently celebrated its official
opening as ‘Europe’s most expensive
hotel’ (even though it’s technically in
Eurasia). Its three-day launch party
laughed in the face of the phrase
‘no expense spared’ and featured
performances from Tom Jones,
The outdoor pool is big enough for 1,000
guests to take a simultaneous dip
free-flowing vintage Dom Pérignon,
buckets of beluga caviar, 8.5 tonnes of
fireworks and – no word of a lie – Russian
billionaires dancing on $100 bills.
WHAT IT’S LIKE
Subtle, it is not. But who needs subtle
when you have a beach covered in 9,000
tonnes of gleaming white sand imported
from Egypt and a spa room with snow in
(pictured below right)?
The Azerbaijani owner, Telman
Ismailov, has lovingly created this
five-star resort for a cool £88m. The
turquoise waters of the outdoor pool
span 13,000 square metres – big
enough for 1,000 guests to take a
simultaneous dip – and more than half
a million crystals glint from the ceilings,
chandeliers and even inside the lifts.
If you’re planning on splashing out on
the Royal Suite, it will set you back more
than £12,000 a night in high season. The
price tag may make your nose bleed, but
it includes two en suite bathrooms, twin
terraces with views of the Mediterranean
and the Taurus mountains, and a butler
service and personal plunge pool.
If, however, your budget is a touch
more ‘modest’ than that, a stay in a
Superior Room will still give you more
than a taste of luxury: think enormous
marble bathtub, a ‘rain shower’ and a
bed so comfortable you may be forgiven
for wanting to stay in it the entire holiday.
Please don’t, though. This palatial
resort will keep you entertained in a
princely fashion, from sailing you around
the pool’s waters in a golden gondola
(yes, really) to stylishly feeding and
watering you in a choice of 14 bars and
10 à la carte restaurants, each staffed
by chefs from the cuisine’s country of
origin. There’s a man-made ‘swim reef’
where you can take a dip with rays and
sharks and the VIP treatment spa is
accessed through a waterfall.
So, fancy treating yourself to levels
of grandeur that make Disney’s Sleeping
Beauty Castle look like a run-down B&B?
Book yourself in to the Mardan Palace.
NEED TO KNOW
O Rooms start from £310 per night
for a Superior Room in low season to
£12,080 per night for a Royal Suite
in high season on a B&B basis.
O For reservations, email
info@mardanpalace.com or visit
Mardanpalace.com.
To view a Ceros magazine you need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser and have the flash player 8 or higher installed. To install the latest flash player, click the icon above, install the flash plugin and then click here to refresh this page.