Luisa

Today, Romana, head of our wellness studio, showed me the newest member of staff. Her name is Luisa, she is very young, actually a baby and has the most amazing body color. She is namely a gold fish and lives in an aquarium in the reception of the wellness center. Welcome Luisa!

New Year's Eve at Grand Hotel Toplice

We had two parties in the hotel last night, one in Grand Hall and another one in Panorama restaurant. There was a lot of dancing and singing, including a performance by Nuša Derenda, one of Slovenia's best female singers. She even represented Slovenia at the Eurovision song contest some years ago. Of course there was a lot of good food as well. After the midnight there was firework from the castle which emphasizes the magic of Bled even further.

There is a lot of work and preparation behind such events as New Year’s Eve and no better reward then guests telling you how much they enjoyed it.

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."