KICK START

Being electrically connected, via one’s ankles, to a Vitatec global diagnostic machine at 7.30 am for a 14-minute assessment of no less than 600 sound beats in the body is a great pre-breakfast exercise. When you are assured that all, or at least most, of your organs are working, move to Botanic Sanctuary’s breakfast room, 600 years ago a nursing ward in what was the healthcare centre of Antwerp—of course, run by monks and nuns.

FAITH MOVES MOUNTAINS

The holies moved out, leaving their superb buildings, and a world-celebrated botanic garden that is to all intents and purposes integral with the hotel. Local developer Eric De Vocht moved in, and with his designer wife Maryse Odeurs spent eight years minutely converting five former monastic buildings to what is now a 108-room Leading Hotel of the World.

WHERE HEARTS KNEEL

The deconsecrated chapel, still with breathtaking stained glass and acoustics that bring top maestros to tears, is used for organ recitals, regular concerts and dinners for meetings. Dotted around the whole are five restaurants, with four Michelin stars between them. 80% of diners, all meals, are not staying in the hotel.

TASTING THE SEA

Lunch at Hertog Jan, for instance, might well include local white asparagus, charred on a charcoal burner brought to your table by co-owner Joachim Boudens. He then spoons Belgian caviar on top. It’s as creamy as the caviar tart that awaited in your room. One bite of heaven.

IGNITED STORIES

Suite 116, typically, is mostly taupe, from satin-smooth new wood floors up to centuries-old wood ceilings. Natural linen forms drapes and upholstery. There’s an electric-fired flickering fire. Copious books cover Matisse through to modern seaside cottage design.

THE GRAND ARRIVAL

The easiest way to reach Botanic Sanctuary is to take the train to Antwerp, which has a cathedral and a rail station. Botanic Sanctuary’s white hybrid Porsche Cayenne awaits, with a flat-cap driver and a butler in leaf green with golden corsage (all the team’s clad by royal designer Edouard Vermeulen). It’s ten minutes to the hotel and the Gardens. Which to see first? The gardens actually come into the reception, where a large glass conservatory copiously hosts giant bananas and similar plants.

WELLNESS IN EVERY DROP

Outside comes inside, here, just as old pairs seamlessly with new. There’s an Apothecary store where, 200 years ago, nuns used to dispense. Today, fashionistas and others drive from far afield to stock up on natural potions and lotions, including the eighth-generation St Charles, which also has dedicated boutiques in Berlin and Vienna.

LEAF YOUR WORRIES BEHIND

One part of this mammoth Antwerp operation flows into another. The German MD, Christian Hirt (above), knows wedding parties often want to check out the well-labelled plants in the Garden. Weekending couples go crazy when they start exploring the history of the whole. And once somebody starts exploring hangings on some walls – a jute sculpture here, Asian heads there – it’s necessary to call in Xavier Le Clef.

CHAPTER BY CHAPTER

This Antwerp-born passionista is a spa director, plus a musicologist and the Botanic Sanctuary’s art curator. His story-telling ranges from why a red-white-and-black block painting in one restaurant had to be extended to why four blackheads peeping out of grass are at different heights.

AWAKEN YOUR SENSES

But his stories stop when he’s setting and assessing the Vitatec machine (it has its own room in the new-build three-floor wellness centre, fitness, and spa plus an 18-metre pool with blazing fire at one end). Botanic Sanctuary is serious business from every point of view. And worth every precious minute.