The Getaways

A Short List of Great Touring Hotels in Europe

Admittedly, we are not travel editors. You won’t find this list on the pages of Travel + Leisure or Condé Nast Traveler. We are twin brothers who have spent twenty years putting long miles on an old Porsche and laying our respective heads down in a lot of hotels along the way. Some were poorly chosen. The ones on this list were not. What they share has little to do with stars or status. A few of them you will recognize. Others you might not. All of them are worth of a visit.

When you’re on the road you rarely stay anywhere more than a night or two, which changes what you’re looking for entirely. You’re there because the road brought you, and tomorrow the road will take you somewhere else.

What these places offer instead is something harder to manufacture: the warm staff who seem genuinely happy you showed up, a meat and cheese spread that deserved the attention it got, and a kitchen that keeps sending things out. The best hotel for a road tourer isn’t necessarily the fanciest one, although some hotels on this list fit the bill. The one theme that brings them together is that you’ll be sorry to have to leave in the morning.

A word on the restaurants: we didn’t set out to compile a Michelin guide. We just try to go where the eating is good after hours on the road. Some of these hotels are worth visiting for the table alone. Others stand completely on their own and the starred kitchen is just a bonus if you appreciate that sort of thing (we do). Either way, a proper meal at the end of a long day never hurt anyone. In fact, Jim Harrison would argue no good day is complete without it. We like to believe he would approve of our list.