Gala dinner for regular guests

One the most precious treasures of any hotel are its regular guests. In Grand Hotel Toplice we have guests that have been coming to the hotel for many, many years, some even for more then 40 years. Each year in July we prepare a special gala dinner for them. Yesterday, we had the most wonderful time once again. Talking, laughing, dancing,… Once more I was very proud of the staff, that made our guests feel very special. We have been preparing for the event for quite some time, choosing the presents, the food, the drinks, making invitations, deciding regarding seating arrangements etc.. The smiles on their faces and many thanks I received at the end were all I could ask for. There is only one thing I have to say to our dear regular guests: “Hvala”, which is Slovene for thank you.

Winter

During a hot summer, there is nothing more entertaining then to look at a photo with snow and ice. This is an old photo of Grand Hotel Toplice during one of the winters when the lake was frozen and you could walk or skate on the lake. Actually it was taken in the same year when I was born. In those days, winters were severe, and temperatures were low enough to enable the lake to freeze over. The ice crust on the lake shore had to be broken and cut away; otherwise the ice could damage the boat house or even the hotel itself. Nowadays, we have global warming and ice on the lake is no longer an issue, which is quite sad. I do wish that we could once again discuss on the weekly staff meeting, whether or not the ice should be cut today or if it can be done a day later. That would be a “nice” problem for me.

Swimming pool

Like many other hotels. Grand Hotel Toplice has a swimming pool. Only ours is a bit different. First of all it was built 80 years ago and secondly the water in it comes from a natural thermal spring right under the hotel. The hotel was actually named after this spring, since “toplice” in Slovene language stands for spa or bath. The water has 22˚C and is very beneficial for inner organs. The spring was discovered in the beginning of the 19th century and very soon the first hotel called Luisenbad was built on the spot. Once again “Bad” in German means the same as “toplice” in Slovene. I often get requests from the guests to warm up the water, but we don’t really want to change the historical connection with hotel’s name. Besides, the quality of water will definitely change if we warm it up.

When things go wrong

Of course things go wrong sometimes. Imagine a hot summer, a hotel full of guests and a broken air-conditioning system. Yes, that’s exactly what happened to us. A part that will have to be replaced has been ordered from Belgium and it arrived on Thursday, but as it turned out they have send a wrong part. Now we have to wait for a new one to arrive. It will take another 5 days before it will arrive and in the meantime all we can do is to apologize to guests. Luckily, it wasn’t the entire system that was broken, since the air-conditioning is working in all the rooms facing the lake. Another good thing is that the part that will have to be replaced is still under warranty and we will not have to pay for a new one. Always look on the bright side of life!

Letters

Nowadays, we tend to communicate via e-mail, SMS, blog and other modern means that require advance technological equipment and hardly any effort from the side of the writer. The language of such communication is poor and very little emotions are put into it. For that reason I can not tell you how happy I am every time I receive a proper letter via ordinary mail. With a nice stamp on a really nice paper, preferably in blue, green or yellow colour. My sincere thanks to Mrs. H.W., Mrs. H.P. and Mrs. N.H. that regularly supply me with news by mailing them to me using Royal mail. Even opening of such a classical letter is an adventure by itself. The smell, the feel of paper under one’s fingers can not be compared to receiving an e-mail. I always write my letters in ink with a pen. It seems that the words flow more easily onto the paper when I use ink. Besides it reminds me of the early years in school when we had to use ink pens. The only problem is that with age, one tends to change his/her handwriting into sometimes illegible mess. Therefore a danger of a hand written letter is that it will not be understood properly. But then again sometimes even typed letters are misunderstood for many reasons beyond illegibility.