Author's Notes

In 1870, the Grand Hotel in Vienna was the first hotel on the Ringstrasse. It set modern standards, comprising all the elements of a hotel as we would know it today: restaurants, bars, a wide variety of salons, an in-house laundry and some we wouldn’t consider standard - a carpenter’s workshop and its own stables!
Until late into the 19th century, a hotel of international standards was often not more than a “maison meublée”, a house that rented out furnished rooms. Any extra services such as lighting (candles), delivery of the luggage to the room (bell boy services) or even heating (logs for the fireplace, as central heating was unknown at the time) - all standard today – were separate services the hotel charged extra for
Often, restaurants were not part of the hotel, but leased to somebody from outside. When the tradition of the table d’hôte came into fashion, the money-losing restaurants finally started to show a profit (everybody ate at the same time in one dining room, served from large trays).Taking at least one meal a day at the hotel was part of the hotel’s terms.

The Grand Hotel deserved its name. It soon had over 300 rooms and was, by the way, the first hotel to be called ‘Grand’ in the entire Austro-Hungarian Empire and one of the first in Europe. Others, such as the fabled Grand in Oslo and Stockholm were opened many years
later.

Accompany us on a stroll through the history of Vienna and its first and only Grand Hotel. Join us on a walk down memory lane, where more than 130 years of an exciting past pave the way of this unique hotel, which has survived two world wars. When the hotel reopened its doors in 1994, after a major face-lift and extensive rejuvenation, it had a long story to tell. Here it is: Still life at the Grand Hotel - the elegance is in the detail.

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