Happy New Year!

Angels, oranges, candles, ribbons, trinkets and ornaments, and other decoration were set throughout the hotel for the holiday season. The photos will hopefully bring some of the festive spirit from Grand Hotel Toplice also to you.

I wish that the year 2009 will be one of those years we will always remember with a smile.

Happy New Year to all of you my dear blog readers!

Concert

We had a really lovely concert in the hotel on Saturday. Mrs. Alenka Zupan on flute and Mr. Denys Masliuk on piano were performing the following program:

Charles Gounod: Ave Maria (On the Prelude of J. S. Bach)
Robert Schumann: Drei Romanzen, op. 94
Piotr Ilitch Tchaikovsky: Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy
Sergei Rachmaninoff: Vocalise op. 34, no. 14
Gaetano Donizetti: Sonate
Astor Piazzolla: Ave Maria
Wihelm Popp: Staccato Fantasy

Luckily our “Lake lounge” is very acoustic and suitable for classical concerts. I must confess I enjoyed the concert very much. This is an advantage of being a hotel manager: You get to listen to great concerts as a part of your job!

Christmas time is here!

Father Christmas came to visit us at the Grand Hotel Toplice. He brought with him a group of wonderful young singers that sang Christmas songs to our guests.
Happy Christmas to you all!!!!

Japanese garden has a new story

My employees never cease to amaze me with their ideas. Here is a fine example:

Robert, our gardener, finished reading a book about Japanese gardens, kindly provided by our guest Mr. K. (Thank you Sasha!)

Robert decided to renovate the garden by placing the stones in a new position. This position was inspired by a 19th Century Slovene poem »The Baptism at The Savica«, where each stone represents one of the main characters from the poem thus creating an interesting story with the Japanese garden.

Pictures of Robert in the process of creation are attached.

Italian

Many of our guests come from Italy. In fact, during this New Year's hollidays , Grand Hotel Toplice will host mostly Italian guests. This is one of the reasons why I decided to brush up my knowledge of Italian language and started to take leasons.

Below text in Italian is for Monica Z., a regular guest of Grand Hotel Toplice:

" Cara Monica! I risotti erano buonissimi! Grazie mille!

L'albergo è gia addobbato per le feste di Natale e Capodanno.

Tanti saluti, Petra."

Gala dinner for the guests of Bled

Every November all the hotels in Bled invite their regular guests to a gala dinner. This year’s dinner took place in Grand Hotel Toplice. It was a lovely evening, filled with music, great food and exceptional service. More then 100 people attended the dinner including 14 regular guests of Grand Hotel Toplice: Mrs. and. Mr. Hathaway, Mrs. Scarpi, Mr. Grensted, Mr. Hibbs, Mr. Kobayashi, Mrs. and Mr. Spinelli, Mrs. Zancanaro and Mr. Roncon, Mrs. and Mr. Aranicki and Mrs. and Mr. Blumenow. Photos of them are included as well as photos of kitchen and service staff.

New uniforms

Staff of Grand Hotel Toplice has new uniforms. The designer was our very own front office manager Mrs. Dagmar Bernard and the manufacturer is a Slovene company Kroj from Škofja Loka. Uniforms were presented to the guests for the first time during gala dinner. Here is a photo of our models with fashion designer Dagmar. The style is modernization of the 1930’s when the hotel was built. The design and colors are very elegant and I am extremely happy the way it all turned out. Don’t they all look very handsome?

Autumn red

The leaves of Virginia creeper that cover Grand Hotel Toplice have got such a wonderful red color I just had to take a photo of them. I use this opportunity to present to you also our beautiful new white gates to the hotel terrace.

The "Golden Lion" Golf Tournament

Since 1977, Grand Hotel Toplice has been hosting its own golf tournament called »The Golden Lion«. This year's tournament which took place on October 26th 2008 at Bled Golf Course was won by Mr. Jernej Pavlič and his name will be added to 31 names of winners alread written on a plaque on the trophy. Congratulations Mr. Pavlič!

New head chef in Grand Hotel Toplice

I am happy to announce that we have a new head chef in our kitchen Mr. Simon Bertoncelj. Simon has been working in Grand Hotel Toplice since 1996. His latest position was assistant head chef. Only a few days ago, he was appointed as the new head chef. His achievements amongst other are also 5 gold medals in national competitions. This year together with his colleague Mr. Drejče Ravnik, he got 98 points out of 100 in the team menu preparation category and of course won first place with the highest score. Congratulations and good luck to Simon in his new position!

In Memoriam

This blog is dedicated to Mr. Robert Worcester, a regular guest of Grand Hotel Toplice, who sadly passed away in his home in England on October 16th 2008. His energy and humor, his kindness and his laughter will always be with us. We all miss him dearly!

Mr. R. Worcester (born on May 2nd 1951), was from Billericay, Essex.

Fashion Show

Yesterday, Grand Hotel Toplice was turned into fashion event setting. Afrodite Mode Collection from Belgrade represented the autumn winter collection for business women. Words are not necessary, since photos tell everything.

Competition

Each year Slovene Chamber of Commerce organizes a competition for tourism and catering industry employees in Slovenia. This year’s competition was held in Moravske Toplice in eastern Slovenia. 9 of my staff members were competing this year in they came back with fabulous results. Miro won gold in barmen’s competition; Tatjana also won gold in the preparation and serving of coffee. Two chambermaids Zorica and Renata won gold and silver. In the team event, Asmir, Simon, Drejče, Nada and Aleš, were better then any other team, and I am proud to say, that the best team in Slovenia in the “preparation and serving of menu” competition comes from Grand Hotel Toplice. Another gold for us. Well done to all my competitors! I am extremely proud of you all!

Bled, Summer of 1936

I like to collect old photos and materials of Grand Hotel Toplice. This year I even managed to produce a small historical gallery made of copies of postcards send from Grand Hotel Toplice in the 20th century and its predecessor Louisenbad in the 19th century. The sources of such materials are different. Some come from private collectors and some from hotel archives. This summer the most amazing thing happened. I was approached by Mr. Yoetz Deutsch, who showed me a photo taken in 1936, showing his family on vacation in Bled. And in the background you can clearly see Grand Hotel Toplice, only 5 years after it was built. With the courtesy and permission of Mr. Deutsch, I am publishing this photo today on my blog site. Thank you dear Mr. Deutsch for sharing such a wonderful family souvenir with me!

Culinary Olympics

I am sure you all know that the next summer Olympic Games will take place in London 2012. But do you know that the next culinary Olympics will take place in Erfurt Germany in October 2008? Yes they will and Slovenia will be participating as well. One of the members of the Slovene National Culinary Olympic team is Igor Jagodic, head chef at Grand Hotel Toplice. Yesterday, the whole team gathered together in our hotel to prepare for the last time publicly the menu with which they will compete in Germany. They will compete in the so called Category R: Restaurant of nations, where each team has to prepare a 3 course menu for 110 people. They are judged by different criteria: mise en place and cleanliness of preparation, correct professional preparation, arrangement and presentation and taste: Attached are some photos of the team and of their masterpieces. I wish them all the best of luck and since I tested the menu myself, I think they have great chances of winning a medal!

Gregor got married!

I have the most wonderful news: Gregor Dežman, our receptionist got married to his beloved Andreja this Saturday. Attached is their photo and I must admit they both look gorgeous. The best of luck and sincere congratulations to both Mrs. and Mr. Dežman! May you be happy together forever!

Table Decorations

Flowers and candles on tables do sound quite normal, don't they? But have you ever seen live gold fish as table decoration? Well, it seems that this is the latest fashion with florists and it happened on one of the wedding dinners we hosted in Grand Hotel Toplice this summer. I have attached a photo in case you still do not believe it. It looks fabulous doesn't it? I also attached some more classical arrangements which are luckily still preferred by most guests. I have nothing against gold fish, please believe me, it is just that I was thinking what comes next. What if somebody decides to have live snakes or spiders on the tables? Where is the limit? In case you were wondering what happened to all the fish (12 in total) after the dinner, let me say that the guests were given plastic bags filled with water and took them home.