About this blog
Dear travel companions and globetrotting friends, Welcome!
Mountain trekking, palm beaches and cruising along the most beautiful coastal drives or weekend trips to attractive cities - we are sure that your explorer's pleasures did suffer a little, lately. With our portraits you can begin to imagine your future dream trip, start to plan with caution and look forward to your next holiday in spite of the continuing security measures and rules. It's allowed to dream and as from mid June it should be doable in many regions like Piedmont, Avignon or Salzburg.
After spending decades collecting and noting many impressions on my numerous journeys, the “best of“ and “must see” assessments went into my personal notes. My “Collection” of favourite addresses during many stopovers became longer and longer. My personal travel diary, so to speak.
Friends and acquaintances asked me increasingly often for my tips and recommendations to plan their holidays.
Because these enquiries became ever more frequent, I decided to begin this slightly different blog at the start of the new decade.
A new hotel portrait will be added every month, together with tips/recommendations with quotations and background information about the hotel’s owner and/or operator of exceptional houses in which one can also stay overnight!
And recommendations from friends for friends.
I hope you will greatly enjoy reading it and “travelling in your imagination”…
MISSION
There are countless blogs, hotel guides and review portals for travellers of all kinds. Whether business or holiday, with or without children, for singles or vegetarians, for rucksack tourists or golfers – the choice on offer is enormous and no-one needs a new hotel guide, certainly not a digital one.
Since a blog is a purely personal platform with subjective stories, impressions, articles and recommendations, I searched for a niche for myself that doesn’t exist yet in this form.
For long enough I searched in vain for a travel blog in which I could find recommended overnight accommodation that was right for me: a blog that paints a portrait NOT of hotels but of personalities that have fulfilled their individual hotel dream.
Personalities who bought a hotel philanthropically to rescue it from bankruptcy or structural dilapidation. Or people who acquired a hotel from their parents, and filled it with new life.
I am interested in the person behind the hotel’s story.
I am NOT interested in another hotel guide that examines and assesses the WLAN, the pool, the contents of the minibar and all the functionalities. There are enough of these, and often they provide disappointments, too many hotel tips are “purchased” recommendations or PR articles.
I'm happy as long as there is a bottle of water beside the bed as a service, or an opportunity to order whatever one wants to eat or drink through room service.
After travelling around for more than 40 years, I am now more fascinated by people who have implemented their own style, and have thus lent their hotel a charm entirely of their own. Such individual addresses interest me far more than super-chic, highly modern, expensively renovated temples of design and luxury hotels with 7+ stars.
I'm happy as long as there is a bottle of water beside the bed as a service, or an opportunity to order whatever one wants to eat or drink through room service.
After travelling around for more than 40 years, I am now more fascinated by people who have implemented their own style, and have thus lent their hotel a charm entirely of their own. Such individual addresses interest me far more than super-chic, highly modern, expensively renovated temples of design and luxury hotels with 7+ stars.
Ideally, I want to talk to a human being at the other end of the phone line, and don’t like having a robotic programmed “synthesised” voice in my ear like the automatic wake-up call that is increasingly often available in the modern telephone systems of luxury hotels.
What I want are charming, personal, sympathetic service staff. A hotel that is a place of wellbeing, including the feel-good factor.Rather as if one were a guest at the home of a good friend. The “total package” must be right, and in most cases the passionate commitment of the owner and his/her staff are what make the small but big difference.
As far as I’m concerned, if a magnifying mirror in the bathroom is missing or a lampshade is slightly skew on the lamp, it’s not a problem – and if it comes from Besslink & Jones, all the more delightful.
WLAN sometimes doesn’t work? It doesn’t matter as long as it’s outweighed by many other positive impressions. For example, an artistically wrapped chocolate praline on the freshly-polished boots at the door, or a cuddly toy on the turned-down bed. Personal charm is the key to an unforgettable stay in a hotel. From concierge and chambermaid to hotel director/owner. What I go searching for are experiences one can’t buy for money! And I have discovered a few of those.
As you will already have noticed - I am specifically and certainly not the classical hotel guest.
That’s what I was for half of my lifetime. As a LUFTHANSA stewardess and in my jobs that took me around the world. In most cities in the nineteen-sixties and -eighties, Lufthansa reserved block bookings at the town’s best hotels for its crews. And the HILTON, Hyatt, Intercontinental, Kempinski, Sheraton, Shangri-La or Oberoi were the TOP addresses at that time. Quite a few have been added to them in the past years and decades.
I organised events and big meetings worldwide for my employer, and booked rooms in the best local hotels for VIP guests!
It’s certainly advisable to fall back on the Marriotts, Regents, Starwoods, Fairmonts or Four Seasons for business or group travel.
So to avoid misunderstandings: what we are talking about here is my personal preference for purely private travel, not about assessing or decrying existing hotels. I have nearly – only nearly - “worked through” my personal “bucket list” during many years, and my favourites have retained their attractiveness for many years.
And one thing has been confirmed repeatedly: whenever a hotel is privately owned, one can sense by many details the differences compared to big hotel chain establishments. And – it’s not always a question of the price. I know luxury hotels that charge between EUR 500.- and EUR 800.- per night – excluding breakfast – and aren’t worth the money.
If you are a similarly idiosyncratic traveller, then follow me on
roosen’s TRAVELWORLD!
My personal criteria for private travel are:
- Location, location, location
- Small hotels
- A room with a view
- A comfortable room in which I can happily remain for hours if the weather is occasionally bad
- Individual furnishings e.g. with an antique, a work of art, unusual books or original decoration.
- Analogue devices such as a room key instead of a card, or light switches rather than displays.
- Air-conditioning that can be entirely switched off.
- Windows that can be opened!
- Good cuisine and interesting wine lists.
- Literature about the history of the building and/or of the neighbourhood.
- Travelling out of season. Then the places are not so full and prices are more moderate.
The list could be continued further – but now let’s enter my small world of private hotels with a feel-good character… pack your bags, and OFF WE GO.
OBJECTIVE:
You should feel at home on my blog!
INFO:
My authors and I don’t accept invitations. Every journey and all overnight accommodation is paid for individually and privately.
Happy landings,
Regards,
Ingrid Roosen-Trinks