Third Best Exotic Hotel

We arrived at the YHA Sorrento Beach House this evening. That is I think we did. For there was not sign, just a drive way and three letters stuck on a wall – SBH (surely not second best hotel). There was no one home. A sign said ‘ring this number’ and luckily we had a phone. The detached voice said ‘use this code to gain entrance’ and so we did. That was the extent of human interaction. It was like boarding the Marie Celeste.

In the evening, we decided to go to the cinema in Sorrento, after the obligatory galls of wine. They were showing The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. It was a typical sequel, over-egging the character traits that made the first so fresh and novel: the over-enthusiastic welcome from the young Indian proprietor for aged English guests, the morning roll call to ensure that no one had died in the night. Plus they had Richard Geer as the obligatory star guest. It was all a bit over the top.

But at the moment I would go for over the top, for our hotel seems to be scraping the bottom. It’s like a vending machine. You insert your money (on-line) and then pull the lever giving you a pre-packaged, stale experience that drops with a clunk on to the shelf for you to accept. There is not way to get your money back.

Yes, I would have preferred the Marigold and even welcomed Richard in the room next door.

Then, just before we leave, a lady turns up and, of course, she spoils everything by being nice and even giving us belated access to the internet. But Maggie Smith and silver-haired Mr. Gerbil still win it for me.