Maya Plisetskaya and Rodion Shchedrin

Very few times in my life have I been so honored and privileged to meet someone as I have been today. Russian Prima ballerina assoluta Mrs. Maya Plisetskaya and Mr. Rodion Shchedrin, a Russian composer visited Grand Hotel Toplice today. It was my great pleasure to be able to talk to them both. I admired their elegance, kindness and their genuine interest in all things new. I was truly honored that they both signed our book of guests as you can see on attached photos.

Mrs. Plisetskaya, has made a huge impression on the ballet world at the Bolshoi Theatre and also Rome Opera Ballet and Spanish National Ballet. Mr. Shchedrin is not just a composer but also an excellent pianist. Their mutual co-operation has been shown in wonderful ballets such as Anna Karenina.

The host of their visit was Mrs. Barbara Miklič Türk, first lady of Slovenia

Statistics

Ever since July 28th2008, I have been following the statistics regarding visitors of my blog, that is of you, my dear readers. From July 28th 2008 till March 17th 2009, this blog has been visited by 3135 people (8119 pageviews in total). Each one has spend an average of 1 minute and 20 seconds on the site, which is 376% more then average of other blogs published via google. The most amazing fact is that people, who read my blog come from 38 different countries. Top 10 readers are from Slovenia, UK, USA, Italy, Japan, Croatia, Spain, Serbia, Ireland and Canada. Fascinatingly enough, I have readers also from Nepal, Bermuda, Sri Lanka and Costa Rica.

My kind regards to all of you, especially my faithful regular visitors, since according to the statistics, I have 604 regular readers that have logged on to my blog for more then 9 times. Thank you!

Photo session

There are people that are loved by camera and love to have their photos taken. And then there are people who do not feel like that at all. Unfortunately, I am the later. A few days ago we had a photographer in the hotel, taking pictures of the hotel and staff for a magazine. I was asked to have a “photo session” with him as well, since, lets be honest my picture on the internet is a bit outdated. Being a woman, I actually prefer to have a photo published that shows me at a “younger” age, but I suppose it is OK to admit your true age, so I agreed. The “session” (I love this world, since it makes me feel like a model.) meant that I had to stand on a balcony of one of the hotel rooms and the photographer was standing on the street below. It was difficult for him and he had to direct me a lot. Look left, look down, move that way, put your hand here,……A part of the end result is visible on the attached photo. Oh, I just realized that I have never published my own photo on my blog, so a lot of you don’t even know what I look like. Well, there you are. This is me. Petra.

Champion from Grand Hotel Toplice

Great news from Grand Hotel Toplice: Our barman Miro Petrevčič just came back from Slovenian Barmen Competition 2009. In the category of preparation of cocktails – fancy drinks - he won gold medal and first place and will be representing Slovenia at the World Barmen Championship in Berlin this August. Well done Miro!

Here he is on the photo with Mateja, showing her one of his fancy creations!

Grand Hotel Toplice Gift Shop

I am happy to announce another great addition to the services of Grand Hotel Toplice. We just opened a gift shop with the following items: baseball caps, umbrellas, polo shirts, bathrobes, towels, Leo toys and postcards all with GHT logo.