Grand Hotel Les Trois Rois

Grand Hotel Les Trois Rois

Blumenrain 8 sits directly on the Rhine, in the middle of Basel's old town, close enough to Marktplatz and the Town Hall that a night stroll doubles as sightseeing. Grand Hotel Les Trois Rois has been taking guests for more than three hundred years, and its guestbook carries the names of Empress Michiko of Japan, James Joyce and Pablo Picasso, though the eighty two rooms across four floors read as contemporary rather than preserved in amber, each individually designed with air conditioning, minibar, bathrobe and soundproofing as standard. What sets it apart from Basel's other grand addresses is Seijaku, a wellness floor built by architects Herzog & de Meuron high above the rooftops, centred on Japanese ideas of stillness and open to hotel guests free of charge from half past ten each morning; the gym stays open around the clock. Food follows the same seriousness: Michelin-starred cooking sits alongside the Cheval Blanc Brasserie and a Sunday brunch service by the river that runs from late morning to mid afternoon. Couples marking an occasion, and anyone who wants a spa that isn't an afterthought, will find real reasons to linger here. Families travelling with young children have a playroom and family rooms to fall back on, though this is not a hotel built around a pool or a kids' club, and travellers hunting a bargain should look elsewhere given the extra-bed and pet fees layered on an already high rate. Pets are welcome for a fee, staff work across five languages, and a concierge, tour desk and airport transfer service handle the logistics. Three centuries in, it still feels lived in rather than roped off. On the Rhine in Basel's old town, this three-hundred-year-old hotel pairs a guestbook that includes Picasso and Joyce with a Herzog & de Meuron-designed wellness floor found nowhere else in the city. Eighty two rooms, Michelin-starred dining and a riverside Sunday brunch, though pet and extra-bed fees add up fast.