Little and Large – why size matters
Lebby goes to the Black Forest and decides that bigger isn't always better when choosing a place to stay
How do you pick your hotel when you’re booking your holiday? Does it have to have a pool, a sauna and a breakfast buffet? Or is a chic location and a restricted number of guests more important to you?
Luckily, we all have different hotel needs and one man’s trash can become another’s treasured holiday destination. Which is why you have to keep an open mind when using an app like TripAdvisor or Booking.com, where a bad review doesn’t necessarily equate to a bad hotel, simply a traveller’s own personal tastes.
In 2005, I spent weeks planning a trip to Egypt. It wasn’t a honeymoon as such – I didn’t get hitched for another five years – but it was the final holiday before we started trying for a baby. Being the Chief Nostalgia Correspondent, I was naturally drawn to historical hotels, and determined to seek out survivors from the Agatha Christie era.
In Cairo, we swerved every modern monstrosity and eventually decided on The Victoria Hotel, near the train station. It’s now sadly closed (as is the Windsor) or even demolished. The TripAdvisor reviews are still up, however, and prove my point perfectly. . We loved it – it was shabby, run down, with piles of plates left for the cockroaches to feast on in corridors, but the rooms were huge and airy, and the communal areas were still grand. Best of all, it hadn’t been buggered around with.
The choice between old world or new was even starker in Aswan. In the 1960s, they plonked a massive and rather overbearing modern hotel next to the Old Cataract Hotel, where Christie was inspired to write Death on the Nile. It looks like they’ve now given this version an overhaul, and painted it in the same pink granite hue as its sister hotel.
Obviously there was no contest in 2005 – we booked at the Old Cataract Hotel, then quite affordable, but made use of the swimming pool at the New Cataract. In 2005, the Old Cataract’s verandah and dining room were sublime, but the rooms had seen better days. We were upgraded from garden view to Nile view (if you leant out over the balcony) and it was divine despite the cracked bathroom tiles. We even got a lot of practice in for the baby-making, as I recall. The hotel was given the comprehensive luxury hotel treatment relatively recently and is now a lot more expensive.
And therein lies the problem. Whereas a couple of decades ago, you could still find bargain rooms in historic hotels, now many have been given luxury makeovers for the millionaire market. But no need to despair, as big is not necessarily always better.
I was reminded of this during a recent trip to the Black Forest for a friend’s 50th birthday. When the invitations went out for a weekend of fine dining (no debauchery now, we’re too old), we had to make a choice between the larger and more expensive hotel, the Traube Tonbach where the birthday boy was staying, and cheaper options around and about. As the local town was Baiersbronn, the Michelin star capital of Germany, it was hard to find budget options.
Eventually we settled on one small but perfectly formed hotel a little further up into the valley, the Landhaus Eickler, or the Cheapskates’ Chalet, as we dubbed it. As our fellow travellers from the UK disembarked at the Traube Tonbach, the four cheapskates looked a little concerned. Would we feel like the poor relations down the road?
Not a bit of it. The Eickler occupies the most enviable position in the valley, just before the remaining houses peter out and the trails into the depths of the forest begin. Our balcony had far-reaching views over the river and it felt like we were immersing ourselves in nature, watching neighbourhood cats chasing their prey and dog-walkers out for early morning strolls. The landscape was rich, with deep green, lush fields, and the air fresh with the scent of cut pine logs.
The rooms were basic but perfectly functional: it’s mainly a hotel for hikers. Downstairs was especially charming, with the terrace on two sides of the building, one for sun worshippers and the other for rainier days. Hotel residents had their own breakfast room, complete with family games and cardies hanging up in case of a change in the weather.
Of course we were a little bit envious of the incredible spa and four pools and the tales of prawns at the extensive breakfast buffet at the Traube Tonbach. But we got the best of both worlds: being able to experience the exceptional cuisine that the Traube Tonbach offers, and enjoy several drinks on their terrace, and then escaping to a little bit of old world Germany at the end of the night.
Would I always choose the Eickler over the Traube Tonbach? Not for a chillier autumn evening when you want to warm your limbs in the (textile-free) sauna after a long hike, but for an unusually hot weekend in April it was the perfect choice.
What do you look for in a hotel? Are you a princess or a penny pincher? A big brand or boutique? What are your hotel must-haves and what are the deal breakers? Let us know in the comments.