YOU can experience a taste of history along with high tea thanks to the Escape High Tea package at the Hydro Majestic at Medlow Bath in the NSW Blue Mountains.
While there, you can take a history tour of the late retailing magnate Mark Foy’s palace in the wilderness to see the results of the six-year refurbishment and hear tantalising tidbits about the hotel’s colourful past.
Escarpment Group general manager Ralf Bruegger said the Blue Mountains has been a destination designed for romance for more than 100 years and many older people would remember the hotel “in its heyday as well as when it did not look so glamorous”.
Now restored from the ground up by the group, people are flocking back to enjoy high tea in the Wintergarden overlooking the Megalong Valley. And in a clever move designed to appeal to men often dragged along to high tea, there’s now an option to the traditional high tea everyone knows and loves – those finger sandwiches, miniature pastries and scones with jam and clotted cream.
Choose the Eastern High Tea and the traditional tiered stand will be laden with steamed dumplings, crispy duck spring rolls, coconut chicken on sugar cane skewers, twice-cooked pork belly and oriental sweets.
On the day I visited many couples were enjoying one of each.
But first, the history tour walks you through the Casino lobby with its domed roof, the rich oriental reds exotic Salon Du The and Cat’s Alley, the elegant Majestic Ballroom with its vaulted ceilings and fireplaces, and the Hydro Majestic Pavilion where displays of the Hydro’s historical past rest alongside examples of the region’s finest gourmet food and wine.
The Escarpment Escape High Tea package costs $75 and includes the history tour and high tea as well as entry into Norman Lindsay Gallery and Museum and Everglades Historic House and Gardens.
Accommodation options include the Hydro Majestic, Lilianfels Resort and Spa, Echoes Boutique Hotel and Parklands Country Gardens and Lodges.
(02) 4782-6885, www.hydromajestic.com.au