Schlosshotel Buhlerhohe

Hotel description

Does anybody really go to Baden-Baden anymore? The answer is a resounding yes — it’s not just for heads of state or 19th-century literary figures anymore. While the rest of the travel world was scurrying about trying to find the next big European resort destination, the town has been sprucing itself up, as has the Schlosshotel Bühlerhöhe: modernizing where it needs to (in the spa, the bathrooms, the room amenities) and staying classic where it doesn’t (the public spaces, the dining rooms, the spectacular historical architecture of this one-time Prussian military hospital).

The bedrooms occupy a stylistic middle ground somewhere between contemporary and traditional, but style is perhaps less important than comfort here; there are just 90 rooms and suites, in a building that looks as though it could hold a hundred more, and they’re nothing if not well-equipped. For the famous baths, or a night in the casino, it’s down into the splendid town of Baden-Baden, a good fifteen-minute drive away, which explains why the Bühlerhöhe needs a spa all its own — most impressive, perhaps, is the indoor swimming pool, surrounded by marble columns, framing a view out full-length windows into the Black Forest.