bathrooms are to a contemporary standard throughout, although a little more space taken off the large bedroom would have allowed a separate shower - something that in my opinion should be a requirement of a five star standard.

Symbolic of the routine nature of the design is the room set aside in tribute to the Empress Maria Theresa. A lover of Bratislava the Empress was instrumental in the Austro-Hungarian Empire moving its Court to Pressburg, as the city was then known. The Empress brought glamour to the city and gave it a status it lost as a part of Czechoslovakia, when it became a small provincial capital. As an independent nation came out of the divorce of the Slovaks from the Czechs, the Imperial period became part of the history of Slovakia.

Furniture of the period was restored and kept for use in recreating a room from the hotel circa 1910. Unfortunately the designers were not sympathetic to these historical aims and the room has been given all the standard joinery, bathroom, carpet and wallpaper of the rest of the hotel. An opportunity for an acknowledgement of the proud past of the hotel (the owner was an advisor on the design of the Titanic because of the reputation the hotel enjoyed in Europe) has been missed – surprising considering the same groups success in preserving authenticity in room 606 in Arne Jacobsen’s Royal in Copenhagen (see Review Archive), complete with correct furniture, tiles, fabrics, bathroom layout and so on..

Reception lobby is competently designed but fails to capture the grandeur of a historic five star hotel. Area leads through to the conference areas (rollover for another view)

This was a missed opportunity to honour the past glory of the hotel, something notably done in all grand hotels which tend to be exercises in evolution rather than design revolution. It was also a missed opportunity to help establish a link with Slovakian past, to help this new/old country place another part of the mosaic to make up its sense of identity. In an era when international hotel groups are often criticised for their lack of a sense of location, the treatment of this room is an echo of the approach of the designers throughout the hotel. Not only have opportunities been missed to keep elements to the past for the building, but as my travelling companion remarked, the feel was of a Belgian hotel, not Slovakian. In the new Rezidor SAS hotel in Krakow, the design deliberately called up the local links with the past – Chopin music notation woven into the carpet, local stone used and so on (see Review article) – so it is strange to see so insensitive an approach used here.

The design of the hotel is not bad; indeed some of the areas work well. The health club and gym for example has been placed on the top floor at the rear of the building and given a discreet balcony area to act as the chill out zone, with views across the rooftops from the exercise areas as well, making a workout more interesting.

The Restaurant makes effective use of the balcony overlooking the main street. The balcony is raised above street level, and as the area to the front of the hotel is all pedestrianised, with small cafés and bistros, sidewalk tables, outside dining areas dotted with umbrellas create a pleasant quiet vista to enjoy. Food and service are also a cut above what one expects in a Continental five star. In fact service in the hotel is very good, the staff friendly and efficient, proud of their hotel and eager to please. I was surprised how widely English was spoken, but it was the open pleasure the staff took in their work that was most delightful – quite unexpected after the attitude in some other parts of Eastern Europe.

The entrance to the hotel from the main square leads past a concierge desk (and a small rack of bicycles kept for use of the guests in the pedestrian areas of the old town) to the entrance lobby, then on to the foyer of the meeting rooms. Here again the old hotel featured a magnificent glass roof which has been preserved, but from the enthusiastic chatter of my contact from the Tourist Office, the end result does not fully reflect the glory that was here before. Whilst a certain grandeur has been captured with the marble columns and floor finishes the end result falls short of the kind of quality achieved in other hotels