Florence Resort Villa, Nantou

Now I don't usually devote and entry to a hotel, or at least a resort, but felt this one deserved a page to itself. We climbed up and up into the mountains to find this host of hotels clinging to the precipitous slopes. And this place was certainly characterful. First, unsurprisingly, great views. Looking down onto the clouds.

Then the hotel. Which is meant to be like a Florentine Palace (of course, this is up a mountain in Taiwan, so what could be more appropriate?). It is actually on a double site. Check-in is at the top,

 and the second part is down below. And the picture below shows you just how far below. It was so steep that walking down was really hard. The car struggled too.

But the rooms were fantastic. Huge and elegantly furnished. I had all this to myself.

I have stayed in many rooms which were far smaller than the bathroom alone. There were terrific, but disconcerting views from the bathroom, as you can see. I am just not used to looking out over trees while sat on the loo. With the extra wrinkle being that the loo was a Japanese one, equipped with heated seat and bum washer.

Now the general plan for the holiday was that we would walk to the restaurant to allow Thibault a break from driving. This seemed particularly useful tonight as poor Thibault was jet-lagged and like the rest of us had been struggling to stay awake, a more serious issue when you are the driver. Indeed I was accompanying him on the odd walk on the way just to try and wake him up a bit.

Unfortunately, these mountain roads are unlit, and have no pavements, so walking wasn't really an option. An dthe hotel only did expensive Western dishes. So we went somehwhere only a short drive away, to challenge Thibault's parking skills. Well this was up a mountain.

Great views from the restaurant roof terrace.

The problem, which was not going to be the last on this trip, is that the restaurant had no English menus and no English speaking staff. We ordered with the aid of another customer.  And at least it was a much better meal than at lunch.Fortunately, given we only had chopsticks, someone came to de-bone the whole chicken we had ordered. Slightly oddly they did this entirely by hand at the table, wearing woollen gloves, with plastic ones put on over the top of the woollen ones.

Apart from the chicken we had what we were assured were the specialities of the place, an omelette, an unidentified fish and some unidentified vegetables.

Then back to the hotel via the local 7/11 to buy some beer. If Thibault couldn't have a drink with the meal because of the driving, he could at least have one back in our palatial hotel rooms.