Back & better than ever
I have returned myself.
I was at Schloss Elmau, Bavaria’s A-1 hotel and spa.
It sits alongside a 200-million-year-old rock. Long before our own integration problems, Earth’s European plate banged into Africa’s tectonic plate and — give or take an inch — up came the 750-mile-long Alps.
Two miles straight up sits Schloss Elmau’s manicured grass.
Schloss means castle.
Its international p.r. specialist Geoffrey Weill reminded me two G7s were recently held here — 2015 and 2022.
Twice Earth’s great global government giants tried to handle human issues while gazing at what God slapped together in France, Monaco, Italy, Austria, Lichtenstein, Germany, Slovenia and Switzerland, which makes its watches, chocolates and cheese on the backside of this little hill.
Elmau’s its town plus owner Dietmar Mueller-Elmau’s name.
The place? Special.
Several pools, multiple foreign food restaurants, trainers, health and nutrition specialists, concerts with those who played Harry and Meghan’s wedding (and are available for the divorce), shops, bookstores, gyms, spas, saunas, waxings, dermabrasions, massages that infiltrate parts even the Hubble can’t find.
G7 is a big deal
Dietmar: “Holding a G7 requires a 1 ¹/₂-year advance prep. Angela Merkel even came beforehand to check our first one.
“Every second is preplanned, agreed upon. Protocol is coordinated. The US delegation had 10 rooms, then 10 more for the cabinet. And America’s president always gets the top floor. Nothing, nobody, stays above him.” Why?
“He’s important, more equal, indispensable. His obsessive security team demands it. No G7 can be held without America. His cabinet had both floors beneath him. America’s specialists didn’t even trust our cables. They brought their own — plus they bulletproof-glassed his bed.
“Pre-trial helicopters arrived eight months in advance. Dogs aren’t sniffing, they’re biting. Coverage 24 hours. Their teams and our teams — 80 people — check everything eight times daily. We even waterproofed and glassed over our open-air ground-floor restaurant. Behind that is where they took photos.
“Wives and cabinet members dined in separate restaurants. Plus we added a pharmacy, medical room and command center.”
Among the VIPs
Anything special these VIPs do? “Obama and Biden had massages. And took a drive. Boris Johnson swam in the lake. Trudeau went jogging. Macron did fitness. Obama spent an hour in the gym.”
The place has an ancient history. In 1872, King Ludwig was here to celebrate his birthday.
A mazel tov to Ludwig but today’s better.
Today they offer electric-powered cars for guests to use free.
Also, the owner suggested escorting me onto the place’s personal 9K jogging trail. I said naah.
Next: heavy-duty gymnastics? Uh-uh. One manicure and I get winded.
Then bicycling or hiking. Uh-uh.
Finally he said: “The G7 was easier to deal with than you.”
As to other parts of the universe, this guy busted a foot at his oceanfront mansion. Told a fee for the doc’s first visit, he asked, “Why so expensive?”
Answer: “Because you broke your foot in Southampton.”
Only in New York, kids, only in New York.
This story originally appeared on NYPost
