Sun 9 Jun 2002
Hotel Kobenzl
Posted by Ken Atherton under austria, germany, vacation
1 Comment
Note to would-be European travellers:
During the off-season, it pays to just show up in the city you want to stay without a reservation. You can save quite a bit of money by booking at the last minute, and you may be able to get upgraded rooms for not much additional cost. At least one of the guidebooks we have recommends this strategy (as long as you are sure there are no major conventions going on!) It’s pretty scary to try this in real life, though, especially when you are arriving from thousands of miles away.
We decided to try this advice on our trip to Salzburg last weekend. Of course, we have the advantage of living only 5 hours from Salzburg, so in the worst case, we could have driven back home. We did check on-line shortly before we left and found that several hotels still had lots of rooms available for the weekend.
Here’s how to make this plan work: Nearly all of the major tourist cities, and even many smaller cities in Europe have tourist information bureaus that are conveniently located near the major tourist areas. One of the services that these offices offer is hotel booking. In some areas, there is a small charge for this (in Salzburg it was 2.30 €), but in exchange, you get access to all of the local hotels. The office can help you find hotels based on location, price or features.
We chose to look for features. The specific feature we wanted was an indoor swimming pool for the kids (it’s still pretty cold to swim outside here). The tourist office knew of several options for this, and found us an inexpensive (for Salzburg) room at a hotel on a hill just outside Salzburg.
The Hotel Kobenzl turns out to be located on something we Indiana folk would more likely term a mountain, and the view of Salzburg is striking. Upon arrival, we paid a small premium (15€/day) to stay in a room with a balcony and a view of the city (and, as we found out later, of the topless sunbathing deck– sorry, we didn’t take any pictures!)
The hotel is described by the proprietors as a spa. It offers a wide array of beauty treatments and massages, as well as a host of “restorative” treatments. Sandi used the opportunity to get away from the kids and me for a massage.
The hotel is a family-run operation, and the owner, Frau von Buseck spends much of her time talking to the guests. It’s an interesting experience, especially for someone like me who is used to staying at chain hotels. She spent time talking to us both after our arrival and each morning at breakfast.
The family is quite proud of the hotel’s history. It was originally built in the early 1800s and has served as a vacation resort for many of the region’s dignitaries and nobles. In more recent times, it has been a popular destination for celebrities, who presumably stay in the royal suite which lists for $1200+ dollars a night, depending on the season. Sandi enjoyed leafing through the photo album in the hotel showing some of the people who stayed there, including Arnold Schwarzenegger, David Hasselhof and Richard Nixon, amongst others. That’s a scary combination if there ever was one!
The hotel was an enjoyable place to be in the evenings and mornings when we were not out exploring the city.
This is a view of old Salzburg, the city center, from Gaisbergspitze, where Hotel Kobenzl is located. The castle on the hill is Hochensalzburg, one of the most famous sights of the city.
The view from the north side of Gaisbergspitze. At its peak, the mountain is about 3300 feet above sea level. The hotel is located at 2/3 of that height. It’s not the highest in the Salzburg area, but it is one of the best located.
Carissa sitting amongst the wildflowers at the peak.
