Hotel at the top of Liberec's Ještěd will once again welcome guests on Monday

Liberec - The hotel of the same name at the top of Liberec's Ještěd will welcome its first guests on Monday. Due to coronavirus measures, however, they had to reduce the number of seats in the restaurant by half and also shorten its operating hours. The restaurant will be open from 11:00 to 17:00. In the morning and evening, it will be available only to guests staying at the hotel, said hotel director David Jiráček to ČTK today. The hotel and restaurant are famous for their unique views, and according to him, interest in accommodation is rising as the opening date approaches. By Monday, the hotel is more than half booked.

The Ještěd hotel and transmitter is one of the most original architectural works in the Czech Republic, and the Liberec region is striving for its inscription on the UNESCO heritage list. The unique building, for which architect Karel Hubáček received the prestigious international Perret Prize, has been a national cultural monument since 2006 and was chosen by the public as the Czech building of the century. Both experts and laypeople are still captivated by the way the building enhances the silhouette of the 1012-meter-high mountain. The building has been serving the public since 1973, and for the last 20 years, it has been owned by Česká Radiokomunikace. According to Jiráček, on nice days, about a thousand people ascend or take the cable car to the mountain's summit.

The interiors of Liberec's dominant structure have undergone renovation in recent years, and their appearance is gradually returning to that of the 1970s. According to Jiráček, the hotel has a capacity of roughly 50 beds, while the restaurant has about three times that. A bistro has been in operation for the past two weeks. "We had to prepare everything because when you open after two months, it’s like starting a pub from scratch. We had to clean and wash everything completely,” Jiráček said. He noted that they have increased disinfection in the hotel rooms. "To ensure that hotel guests have the dining spaces to themselves, we restricted operations for the public. That’s why we extended the hours in the bistro and in Rohanky," he added.

The hotel and restaurant on Ještěd, like other similar establishments, closed on March 14 based on a government decision aimed at protecting the health of residents and slowing the spread of covid-19. Jiráček did not want to comment on the amount of losses caused by the closure today. "It's a relatively large sum, like for every pub or hotel that closed," he said. Therefore, according to him, the company utilized wage subsidies from the ANTIVIRUS program. They did not lay off staff at Ještěd, but some employees are hired only for the season. "Their contracts ended in March, and unfortunately, we couldn’t extend them,” the director added.