Where to Stay in Baden-Baden, Baden-Württemberg

What is Baden-Baden known for?

Baden-Baden is known as a spa town at the edge of the Black Forest, where hot springs have drawn bathers since the Roman bath ruins were first cut into the hill. The waters made its name. Around the springs grew a resort of galleries and villas along the river Oos, and its art now rivals its baths, from the Museum Frieder Burda to the Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden and the Fabergé Museum.

Above the town the Merkur rises over the wooded valley.

What are the main landmarks in Baden-Baden?

Baden-Baden sets its landmarks between the river Oos and the wooded hills. The Roman bath ruins survive beneath the old town, remnants of the springs that first drew settlers, and the Stiftskirche rises over the market above them. Art fills the resort.

The Museum Frieder Burda and the neighbouring Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden hold modern collections, while the Fabergé Museum and the Stadtmuseum Baden-Baden keep smaller ones. Above the valley the Merkur observation tower and the Fremersberg Tower crown the ridges, and the Neues Schloss looks down from its terrace on the hillside.

What is the history of Baden-Baden?

Baden-Baden began as a Roman spa where hot springs broke from the hillside above the river Oos. The Roman bath ruins under the old town mark that first settlement, cut for soldiers and travellers who came for the warm water long before the resort took its modern shape. The springs never stopped.

Through the medieval centuries the town served the margraves of Baden, whose seat on the hill left the Neues Schloss and whose church, the Stiftskirche, still stands over the market. The waters brought the town its second life. Drawn by the baths and the mild valley air, visitors turned Baden-Baden into a fashionable resort, and villas, galleries, and gardens spread along the Oos below the Black Forest.

Composers and painters came with the crowds. Brahms kept rooms in the Lichtental quarter, now the Brahms House, and the collections that became the Museum Frieder Burda and the Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden took root in the same era. The Neues Schloss above and the towers on the ridges, the Merkur and the Fremersberg Tower, frame the town the resort left behind.

Baden-Baden remains a spa town of Baden-Württemberg, its name doubled to set it apart from the region of Baden around it.

Where is Baden-Baden?

Baden-Baden sits in the valley of the river Oos where it leaves the Black Forest for the Rhine plain, in the state of Baden-Württemberg. Wooded hills close around the town on three sides, rising to the Merkur above the eastern edge, while the valley opens west toward the Rhine and the French border a short way off. The land tilts down to the plain.

Strasbourg lies across the river to the south-west, and the forested ridges that give the region its spa waters run north and south along the mountain front. The springs come from deep in that rock.

What is the climate of Baden-Baden?

Baden-Baden holds a mild climate, sheltered in the Oos valley below the Black Forest. Warm air off the Rhine plain reaches up the valley, so winters stay softer here than on the ridges above, and snow lingers longer on the wooded heights than in the town. Baden-Baden's summers run warm.

Its valley stays leafy and cool. The hills wring rain from the westerly weather, keeping the forests damp and the valley cool through the hottest spells, while spring and autumn draw long spells of settled sun. The mountain front shapes the weather as much as the springs shape the town.

How do you get to Baden-Baden?

Baden-Baden sits on the main Rhine-valley rail and road corridor between the river and the Black Forest. Its station lies out on the plain, west of the old town, with fast trains stopping on the line up the Rhine. A regional airport lies nearby.

Trains run north into the rest of Baden-Württemberg and south toward Strasbourg across the French border, and a bus or short ride links the station to the springs in the valley. The motorway along the Rhine passes close to the west, so the town is an easy reach by car from the plain and the mountain roads alike.