The Best Places to Stay and Do in Baden-Baden

Baden-Baden has been luring people to its thermal waters since Roman times, which gives Brenners Park Spa a very long tradition to live up to. The five-story spa complex sits inside a grand hotel that just finished a full renovation, with serious attention paid to the waters themselves. Vogue named it among the 100 best spas in the world. The surrounding Black Forest keeps the whole thing feeling less like a hotel amenity and more like the actual point of the trip.

A rooftop bar looking out over the Black Forest is a strong opening argument for any hotel, and this grand old Baden-Baden institution has several more. Fully restored and back in business, it offers high-ceilinged rooms with bespoke details, a spa built for actual rest, and a location steps from the Kurhaus and parkland. The Michelin Guide awarded it one Key. Thermal waters and slow afternoons are what this town runs on, and the hotel knows it.

Antique furnishings, marble bathrooms, and private terraces on every room set the tone at this grand luxury hotel beside the Oos river in Baden-Baden. The building sits in parkland overlooking a tree-lined promenade, and the spa runs every treatment imaginable, which feels appropriate in one of Europe's most storied spa towns. The Black Forest casino crowd and the quiet-cure crowd coexist without apparent friction.

A Milanese designer dropping a modernist boutique hotel into one of Germany's most stiffly traditional spa towns was, to put it mildly, a conversation starter. Street-art murals and faux-Elizabethan pop-culture portraits share wall space with sober, impeccably placed furniture, while the rooms run comfortably palatial. The rooftop bar and outdoor pool sit above the Black Forest, which is exactly as good as it sounds.