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Accommodations in the Black Forest are varied and plentiful, from simple rooms in farmhouses to five-star luxury. Some properties have been passed down in the same family for generations. Gasthöfe offer low prices and local color. Keep in mind that many hotels in the region do not offer air-conditioning.
This appealing hotel has paintings of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's illustrations for his 1943 French children's classic, Le Petit Prince, charmingly adorning the rooms, each done in its own unique decor. The Rademacher family opened this hotel using patriarch Norbert's experience as a veteran of New York's Waldorf-Astoria and his wife Edeltraud's interior design skills to combine two elegant city mansions into a unique, antiques-filled lodging.
Evoking the beauty of its namesake era (and a touch classier than its sister hotel Der Kleine Prinz), the Belle Epoque offers large rooms, soaring ceilings, spacious beds, genuine antiques, luxurious baths, and a beautiful enclosed garden. Family-friendly and elegant simultaneously, it offers both breakfast and high tea in a beautiful salon just off the lobby with a great view to the Lichtentaler Allee.
With a large indoor pool and sauna and comfortable rooms, this boutique hotel offers a nice alternative to the luxury of some of the other local options if you don't mind the plaid-filled, 1970s aesthetic of the room decor. The steep roof of this 200-year-old typical Black Forest building offers an unmistakable clue to the heavy oak fittings and fine antiques inside. In winter, the lounge's fireplace is a welcome sight when you are returning from the nearby ski area. In its beamed restaurant, you can dine on fresh local specialties.
The "Red Bear" claims to be the oldest inn in Germany, with its history traced back 50 generations and documented in a book. Dating from 1311, the inn retains its individual character, along with a cellar displaying its 700-year-old foundation open to the public interested in seeing part of the original inn. Like most of Freiburg, the original building was destroyed in World War II; the new building maintains a historical facade that betrays the comfortable lodgings and excellent dining option inside.
