Yeah, that’s a mouthful for a hotel name. We stayed at the Hotel Jagschloss Kranichstein for just a night on our way to Cochem because we thought it would be fun to stay in a four star hotel with some serious history. It turns out that it was kind of anti-climactic, in that we were expecting “rustic,” and what we got was well maintained and modern on the inside, and historic on the outside. Rustic was nowhere to be found.
The rooms were as modern as it gets with the exception of air conditioning. There was none, but there wasn’t any real need for it either. Keep in mind that we’re at 47 degrees north latitude, or the equivalent of a bit north of Seattle, so air conditioning even in August isn’t a priority. The windows being open in the evening were adequate for comfort. There’s even WIFI in the building. Speed tests showed about 5 MB/s up and down, so no problems there.
There was a well-appointed “Bistro”, which looked to us like a combination bar and morning breakfast area, and in fact that’s how it was used. And there is a restaurant on the property. We didn’t try the restaurant because there was a private event in progress the night we stayed. Instead, we went for a walk in the forest.
Near the town of Darmstadt, this building was constructed in or around 1580 By Georg I of Hesse-Darmstadt Landgrave. The idea then was to build a hunting lodge, or castle among the forests of the area, and it remained a hunting lodge through the centuries. It gradually changed purposes until it finally emerged as a premier location for the elite to vacation and unwind. Queen Victoria was known to visit here in the mid-19th century.
Today, it’s a four star hotel that houses travelers from around the world as well as hosting weddings, meetings, small conventions of all sorts. It’s still among the forests and we found a walk in the woods was quite inviting. There is a large pond (about three acres) in the immediate back of the hotel grounds and the forest is crisscrossed with hiking and biking trails. The landscape, to us, looks very much like Tennessee, but without the humidity.
The question now is, how can we find more excuses to stay in this great hotel in the future?
