Hotel Heidel­berg

A high­light in Heidel­berg is pro­ba­bly the Heidel­berg Castle Illu­mi­na­tion, for which many people travel to Heidel­berg espe­ci­ally. Some hotels in Heidel­berg have spe­cial offers for this to make your stay as plea­sant as pos­si­ble. Heidel­berg has even mana­ged to join the ranks of the city ver­si­ons of Mono­poly. In Heidel­berg Mono­poly you can “buy” Heidel­berg Castle, the Philosopher’s Path, the Heidel­berg Suites Hotel or the Heidel­berg Zoo. The beau­tiful sce­n­ery that Heidel­berg offers is of course not unno­ti­ced by some direc­tors. For exam­ple, the sce­n­ery with the castle in the back­ground appears in the first German Net­flix ori­gi­nal “Isi & Ossi”, which was pro­du­ced in Heidel­berg and Mann­heim. Also in the ARD series “Hotel Heidel­berg” you can see the beau­tiful Heidel­berg sce­n­ery again and again. Maybe a little dis­ap­poin­ting is that the hotel Heidel­berg in the series is actually not a hotel at all, but a villa of a real estate developer.

In a tou­rist mee­ting place like Heidel­berg, there are of course many hotels. Whe­ther expen­sive, cheap, old, new, large or small. The hotels in Heidel­berg make the choice really dif­fi­cult. Espe­ci­ally since many of the hotels are loca­ted in the city centre and thus have good con­nec­tions to the various sights. Often just by foot. The fact that the occu­p­ancy rate of the hotels 2 years ago was the hig­hest in the whole fede­ral state pro­ba­bly speaks for itself. And they were not fully booked because there are too few hotels, quite the con­trary, there are even new hotels ope­ning every year. Just in spring 2020 the Qube Hotel Bahn­stadt opened and in the field of vision of the Hotel Hei­del­ber­ger Hof a new and large hotel is also being built in Heidel­berg. The guests of Heidel­berg hotels, howe­ver, do not always come to the city just for sight­see­ing. Often rela­ti­ves of pati­ents of the Uni­ver­sity Hos­pi­tal come to Heidel­berg and look for accom­mo­da­tion in one of the hotels. Of course the price is always very important, bes­i­des the loca­tion and size of the hotel. Heidel­berg offers a variety of accom­mo­da­tion through pri­vate bed & break­fasts, pen­si­ons, youth hos­tels, hos­tels, apartments/apartment hotels or ” just” hotels. The respec­tive offers and prices in the indi­vi­dual cate­go­ries are cor­re­spon­din­gly dif­fe­rent. Those who like it big and luxu­rious will pro­ba­bly find their place in a Grand Hotel, such as the 5-star Grand Hotel Euro­päi­scher Hof. The mostly a little smal­ler but still luxu­rious hotels are the bou­tique hotels that are also often found in Heidel­berg (e.g. Hotel Heidel­berg Suites, Qube Bahn­stadt, Qube Berg­heim). Many of the hotels loca­ted in the Old Town have their seat in his­to­ri­cal walls, which are often seve­ral hundred years old. For exam­ple the Art­Ho­tel Heidel­berg or the Hotel Villa Mar­stall. In terms of price, one might think that the hotels loca­ted directly in the Old Town or on the main street are the most expen­sive. But: wrong thought, at least for the major part. Indeed, there are more expen­sive hotels in the city centre (that means the Old Town and Berg­heim), but there are also spo­ra­di­cally che­a­per hotels. Among the hotels that are not loca­ted in the city centre, there are more che­a­per ones that are also lower in price than the che­a­per ones of the city centre. Nevert­hel­ess, there are also some more expen­sive hotels out­side the city centre. In Heidel­berg there are many pri­va­tely run hotels, but also some hotel chains, such as the Leo­nardo Hotels or the Mar­riott Hotels.

Hotel, hostel, B&B, apart­ho­tel and apart­ments. Some­ti­mes you don’t even know what the dif­fe­rence is. And also in Heidel­berg you can find “Hotel Heidel­berg”, “Hostel Heidel­berg” or “Apart­ments Heidel­berg” if you are loo­king for an accommodation.

Basi­cally, an apart­ment (also called an apart­ment-hotel) is a “room” that is fully equip­ped like a small apart­ment. A small kit­chen, a bath­room and pos­si­bly even a sepa­rate living and slee­ping area are mainly used for longer stays. There are also often hotels that offer some apart­ments in the hotel or in a sepa­rate buil­ding in addi­tion to their “normal” rooms.

A hostel dif­fers from other accom­mo­da­ti­ons mostly by the low price. Hos­tels are usually pri­va­tely run and all have their own indi­vi­dual touch. There are usually shared rooms or dor­mi­t­ories and gene­rally many shared rooms. Howe­ver, some of them also offer some single rooms in addi­tion to the shared rooms. Espe­ci­ally back­pa­ckers and young people book hos­tels, also because bes­i­des the low price they are very often in the centre of a city. The atmo­sphere will also be more rela­xed due to the visi­tors than in a hotel. Often hos­tels also offer common acti­vi­ties. The ser­vice is dif­fe­rent in every hostel, so you may be allo­wed to take coffee, tea and cere­als for free in one hostel, and may need to bring your own bed linen to ano­ther hostel if you don’t want to pay a few euros. In gene­ral, the cont­act with the other guests is bigger in a hostel than in a hotel.

A Bed and Break­fast or also B&B usually means a room in a pri­vate house. As the name sug­gests, the price includes break­fast in addi­tion to the bed or room. In a pri­vate house you don’t live alone, but with the owners and maybe even other guests under one roof. Depen­ding on the boo­king and the size of the accom­mo­da­tion, there is a pri­vate bath­room bes­i­des the room. If not, the bath­room is shared. The ser­vice is not pro­vi­ded by employees but by the host. In a B&B you are like with fri­ends you haven’t seen for a long time. You just ring the door­bell and sleep in the guest room. B&Bs are usually also che­a­per and are often offe­red by older cou­ples. The atmo­sphere here is very fami­liar and you often get some insi­der tips.

Howe­ver, most common, you will still find the clas­sic hotels in cities like Heidel­berg. Depen­ding on the faci­li­ties, ser­vice and qua­lity, hotels fall into dif­fe­rent cate­go­ries (stars 1-5). The rooms are pri­vate with a bath­room and usually there is at least break­fast in the hotel. Towels and bed linen are also pro­vi­ded by the hotels and they even have to pro­vide them to their guests. Of course, bes­i­des the sub­di­vi­sion of the hotels into stars, there are also dif­fe­rent names. Thus, most of the times, the Grand Hotel is big and luxu­rious and the Bou­tique Hotel rather smal­ler and more per­so­nal. Bou­tique hotels are often also descri­bed as bou­tique-design hotels, as the owners often pay spe­cial atten­tion to the fur­nis­hing. By the way: In order to be descri­bed as a “Grand Hotel”, you don’t have to meet cer­tain cri­te­ria. And there is also no uni­form defi­ni­tion for the designation.

The term boar­ding­house might lead thin­king about the air­port and a short stay bet­ween two flights. But again, wrong thought. In a boar­ding­house you will find fur­nis­hed apart­ments for longer stays with hotel-like ser­vices. The boar­ding­hou­ses are often loca­ted in the city and are booked by com­pa­nies for their workers or by busi­ness­men who have some­thing to do in the city. They are more likely to book a boar­ding­house than a hotel, because a boar­ding­house simply has the lower price.

The prices for an over­night stay in a hotel in Heidel­berg can of course, as in any city, only be cal­cu­la­ted as a lump sum. Because depen­ding on season, day and time, prices can rise and fall, and not just by a few cents. For 3 star hotels, the price is on average appro­xi­m­ately under the 100 € mark and for the 4 star hotels a few Euros over it. The 5 star hotels are alre­ady almost 300€ per night, but they also offer cor­re­spon­ding luxury.

The Royals Wil­liam and Kate were pro­ba­bly the high­light in Heidel­berg a few years ago. Alt­hough they were only in Heidel­berg for a few hours, they still caused quite a stir. On the con­trary to the two, there were also some cele­bri­ties who stayed in a hotel in Heidel­berg for one or the other night. So the Hotel Euro­päi­scher Hof Heidel­berg is ador­ned with many famous names from dif­fe­rent deca­des. Bes­i­des poli­ti­ci­ans and noble­men of today and history, the fashion desi­gner Wolf­gang Joop, the boxer Muham­mad Ali, the Klit­schko brot­hers, David Has­sel­hoff and also Ed Sheeran and Nena among many others have found their way to the Euro­päi­scher Hof. The actor and crime scene com­mis­sio­ner Richy Müller and the former German pre­si­dent Horst Köhler have also made their way to the Neu Heidel­berg Hotel.

One thing should now be cer­tain, if you want to stay in a hotel in Heidel­berg, in or near the Old Town, and stay longer than one or two nights, you should rather plan a little more money than too little. Fin­ding a hotel in the city centre is not very dif­fi­cult, because even for less money you can find some­thing here. And even if you can’t find a sui­ta­ble one, you can reach the sights very easily by bus and train. And if you have your accom­mo­da­tion in the city centre, depen­ding on the loca­tion you don’t even need public trans­port to be able to cross most of the sights off your to-do list. In the large sel­ec­tion of hotels and accom­mo­da­ti­ons there should be some­thing for every visi­tor of Heidelberg.