All products are independently selected by our editors. If you buy something, we may earn an affiliate commission. My German grandmother never liked to talk about the past, but her eyes always lit up whenever I asked her about Baden-Baden. This elegant spa town in southern Germany, a short drive from the French border, was the only place that she ever spoke about revisiting in her forsaken homeland: in occupied Hamburg just after World War II, she fell in love with a British officer and followed him back to the UK.
After she died, I did go to Baden-Baden and I too fell in love with it. Hidden in a lush, green valley, shielded by the dark wooded hills of the Black Forest, it felt like a relic of those halcyon days she used to talk about: before the Third Reich, before the war. The town is stately yet sedate, with a grandeur quite out of keeping with its compact size. After the collapse of the Roman Empire, the wider world forgot about Baden-Baden until the beginning of the 19th century, when bathing in hot, smelly mineral water and even drinking it became fashionable again.
Around the same time, dozens of other spa towns throughout Germany began to flourish. The country was booming then: the advent of the railways made international travel easier and more affordable, and the newly-moneyed bourgeoisie had time on its hands and cash to spend. Aachen, four-and-a-half hours by train from London , was the first to call out.
Founded by the Romans, it was revived in the Dark Ages by Emperor Charlemagne, who crowned it the capital of his European empire. He enjoyed a good soak. During World War II, Aachen was the first German city to fall to the invading Allies, but only after a fierce street battle, from which it still bears the scars. Usually thronged with tourists, it was quiet as I wandered around. I realised that it is still slowly, reluctantly awakening from the spectre of the pandemic, the latest siege in its long history.
It was busy the last time I visited, but tonight even more so, and the clientele seemed younger: teenagers and somethings flirting, gossiping and having fun. Then, as now, people came for a bit of exercise but mainly to meet friends and catch up on the local news. Suitably refreshed, I strode beneath an inky black sky back to my quarters at the Parkhotel Quellenhof Aachen, a tremendous early20th-century monument to Prussian hubris that was used as a military hospital for the Luftwaffe during World War II and is now a smart spa hotel.
