If they were to ask me, what does the everyday hotel routine represent for you? the answer would be only one: it is Life. Our Visentin family has been running the Hotel Napoleon for 48 years, a long period in which we brought innovations, improved our offer, and witnessed entertaining scenes performed by “peculiar” tourists.
If you don’t know us yet, today is your chance to do so. Instead, if you are one of our most loyal guests, we will make you smile through time travel to relive the hotel’s history together.
Birth and growth of the Hotel Napoleon
The Hotel Napoleon was founded in 1968 by a Swiss lady. With her husband, they built the hotel to provide work for their children, but they preferred to take a different path. But when my husband and I showed our interest in buying the hotel, the owners did not want to sell it. So we started looking for other opportunities… but we were fond of Napoleon because we already felt at home within its walls.
So, after an initial rental period, we finally became the owners of Hotel Napoleon on 15 January 1975.
Hotellerie, a family passion
For those who don’t know us yet, in my family, there’s me (my name is Edda, and I am the narrator speaking today), Elfi (my husband), Mario (my son), and Ronnie, our German poodle who is everyone’s friend.
When we took over the hotel, the structure was bare, whereas today, it reflects our taste. Since we liked the name, we decided to work around the “Napoleon theme”. My husband and son bought in various fairs and factories in China all the white statues you can see in our hotel.
My son inherited the love for the hotellerie from my husband: when he was about ten years old, he did the dishwashing, set up the sun loungers on the beach, and hung out the laundry. He was born exactly eight days after our family took over Napoleon: Mario was born with our hotel… it has always been his.
And just like a part of himself, he loves to transform it all the time, changing the colour of the walls and adding areas to entertain guests. Given the start of the 2023 season, he is completing the billiard room with table football, chess, tables for playing cards, and a bar where you can enjoy your favorite drink in good company.
For the future, we plan to design new suites on the first and fifth floors (where you can find a big terrace) to meet the growing demand from couples and groups of adults to stay in large rooms.
Many see the hotellerie as a pure business, but this job needs love. In fact, after years, some customers become true friends, members of a large family with whom we talk on the phone all year round.
The same goes for those who work with us and believe in our project, such as Dani, our faithful friend with a thousand talents, expert valet and master of the Club Sandwich, an essential member both for us and our guests, a professional with a warm and genuine smile without whom the Hotel Napoleon wouldn’t be the same.
The aspect I love the most about this job is the contact with people: I like getting to know guests from countries other than my own and asking them for advice to improve our offer. People often arrive at the hotel tired, with long faces, and it is a great satisfaction to encourage them to have a chat. Sometimes a smile is enough to warm people up: the relationship starts right there.
The strengths of the Hotel Napoleon
A location that allows almost every room in the hotel to enjoy the sea view, the heated swimming pool, and the care for people: these are the main reasons why our guests choose us and come back.
For me, seasonal work is wonderful: for five months, we do our best, and during the rest of the year, we dedicate ourselves to improving the hotel or cultivating our other passions. Precisely because it is seasonal, sometimes it is hard to find staff members, but thanks to the atmosphere you can inhale at Napoleon, many come back to work with us because they feel at home.
If you want to know our family better, come and visit us at Hotel Napoleon!
