Charming Small Hotel Guides: Germany. Stylish City Hotels, Captivating Country Hotels, Inns and Other Places to Stay PDF
Preview Charming Small Hotel Guides: Germany. Stylish City Hotels, Captivating Country Hotels, Inns and Other Places to Stay
Duncan Petersen’s Charming Small Hotel Guides Germany Duncan Petersen’s Charming Small Hotel Guides Germany SERIESEDITORFiona Duncan EDITORGeorge Pownall CONTRIBUTINGEDITORSMatthew Johnson, Jacqui Sayers Duncan Petersen 4th (expanded) edition Conceived, designed and produced by Duncan Petersen Publishing Ltd, C7 Old Imperial Laundry, Warriner Gardens, London SW11 4XW Copyright © Duncan Petersen Publishing Ltd 2008, 2003, 1999, 1997, 1995, 1992 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright Act 1956 (as amended). Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. Editorial directorAndrew Duncan Contributing editorsMatthew Johnson, Jacqui Sayers Production editorJacqui Sayers Cover design Lizzie Ballantyne MapsMap Creation Ltd A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978-1-903301-50-0 DTP by Duncan Petersen Publishing Ltd Printed by Polygraf Print in the Slovak Republic Cover photography: 4 Corners Images Contents Introduction 6-15 Reporting to the guide 16 Hotel location maps 17-25 Northern Germany Schleswig Holstein 26-35 Hamburg 36-39 Niedersachsen 40-53 Western Germany Nordrhein-Westfalen 54-84 Rheinland-Pfalz 85-107 Saarland 108-109 Central Germany Hessen 110-121 Eastern Germany Mecklenburg-Vorpommern 122-137 Sachsen-Anhalt 138-141 Brandenburg 142-148 Berlin 149-157 Thüringen 158-162 Sachsen 163-170 Southern Germany Baden-Würtenburg 171-233 Northern Bayern 234-273 Southern Bayern 274-310 Indexes 311 5 Introduction In this introductory section: Our selection criteria 8 Charming and small 9 How to find an entry 13 Reporting to the guide 16 Maps 17-25 Welcome to this 2008 edition of Charming Small Hotel Guides Germany– a major new upgraded edition: • All hotels now have two colour photographs rather than one – often giving an inside as well as an outside view of the hotel. • The layout has been changed in order to take you more quickly to essential booking information. We hope that you will think these real improvements, rather than change for its own sake. In all other respects, the guide remains true to the values and qualities that make it unique (see opposite), and which have won it so many devoted readers. This is the guide’s fourth consecutive update since it was first published in 1992. It has sold hundreds of thousands of copies in the U.K., U.S.A., and in three European languages. 6 Introduction Why are we unique? This is the only independently-inspected (no hotel pays for an entry) accommodation guide that: • has colour photographs for every entry; • concentrates on places that have real charm and character; • is highly selective; • is particularly fussy about size. Most hotels have fewer than 20 bedrooms; if there are more, the hotel must have the feel of a much smaller place. We have found that a genuinely warm welcome is much more likely to be found in a small hotel; • gives proper emphasis to the description, and doesn’t use irritating symbols; • is produced by a small, non- bureaucratic company with a dedicated team of like-minded inspectors. See also ‘So what exactly do we look for?’, page 8. 7 Introduction So what exactly do we look for? Our selection criteria • A peaceful, attractive setting. Obviously, if the entry is in an urban area, we make allowances. • A building that is handsome, interesting or historic; or at least with real character. • Adequate space, but on a human scale. We don’t go for places that rely too much on grandeur, or with pretensions that could be intimidating. • Good taste and imagination in the interior decoration. We reject standardized, chain hotel fixtures, fittings and decorations. • Bedrooms that look like real bedrooms, not hotel rooms, individually decorated. • Furnishings and other facilities that are comfortable and well maintained. We like to see interesting antique furniture that is there to be used, not simply revered. • Proprietors and staff who are dedicated and thoughtful, offering a personal welcome, but who aren’t intrusive or overly effusive. The guest needs to feel like an individual. • Interesting food.There are few entries in this guide where the food is not of a high standard. • A sympathetic atmosphere; an absence of loud people showing off their money; or the ‘corporate feel’. 8 Introduction A fatter guide, but just as selective In order to accommodate all entries with a whole-page description and 2 colour photographs, we’ve had to print more pages. But we have maintained our integrity by keeping the selection to around 300 entries. Over the years, the number of charming small hotels in Germany has increased steadily – not dramatically. We don’t believe that there are presently many more than about 300 truly charming small hotels in Germany, and that, if we included more, we would undermine what we’re trying to do: produce a guide which is all about places that are more than just a bed for the night. Every time we consider a new hotel, we ask ourselves whether it has that extra special something, regardless of category and facilities, that makes it worth seeking out. Charming and Small There really are relatively few genuine charming small hotels. Despite the compromises we have had to make in Germany (see next page), we are particularly fussy about size. Also, unlike other guides, we often rule out places that have great qualities, but are nonetheless no more nor less than – hotels. Our hotels are all special in some way. See our criteria summarized in detail on the opposite page. We think that we have a much clearer idea than other guides of what is special and what is not; and we think we apply these criteria more consistently than other guides because we are a small and personally managed company rather than a bureaucracy. We have a small team of like-minded inspectors, chosen by the editor and thoroughly rehearsed in recognizing what we want. While we very much appreciate readers’ reports – see page 16 – they are not our main source of information. 9 Introduction No fear or favour To us, taking a payment for appearing in a guide seems to defeat the object of producing a guide. If money has changed hands, you can’t write the whole truth about a hotel, and the selection cannot be nearly so interesting. This self-evident truth seems to us to be proved at least in part by the fact that pay guides are so keen to present the illusion of independence: few admit on the cover that they take payments for an entry, only doing so in small print on the inside. Not many people realize that on the shelves of British bookshops there are many more hotel guides that accept payments for entries than there are independent guides. This guide is one of the few that do not accept any money for an entry. The German hotel scene We admit to having a hard time finding our sort of hotel in Germany. It is getting easier, but this is still a country where success seems to lead inevitably to growth: often enough, the attitude of consumers and indeed hoteliers seems to be that to be taken seriously, you need to be big. But things are changing, especially in areas where there is plenty of tourism, and therefore a need for extra choice. But the big change since our last edition has occurred in the East, where it is now relatively easy for us to give more than 50 hotels full page entries and to mention on page 122 20 more which we would like to have written about, and will hope to in our next edition. Don’t expect from these hotels everything you would from charming small 10 Introduction hotels in, say, France or Italy: they need to be compared with other East German hotels. We’ve noticed in the East a heavy-handed tendency to over-decorate and over-furnish; and we’ve found that food, though taken seriously in many places, often lacks finesse. Accept these failings, and you could have a very interesting time indeed travelling through East Germany with this guide. Travel to Germany from the UK By road Our inspectors' preferred way to cross the English Channel to tour Germany is the Eurotunnel, the most flexible and comfortable option. The UK terminal is just outside Folkestone and the French terminal just outside Calais. If you miss a shuttle, you have a fair chance of getting on to the next one half an hour later. You need to arrive at the terminal just half an hour before your shuttle leaves. Driving on and off the special train is worry free. Check-in has become easier than ever with the automated touch-screen system, which could hardly be simpler to use. The crossing time itself is 35 minutes and once on the other side you just drive off the shuttle and directly on to the motorway. From Calais to the German border is about five and a half hours on the French motorways. As we went to press return prices ranged from £63 to £199, depending on time of day and degree of flexibility required. Animals (cats, dogs and ferrets) are £30 extra. 11
The list of books you might like
