Colombi Hotel

The Rotteckring is the boulevard that traces the line of Freiburg's old western wall, and at number 16, where it meets the small Colombipark, stands the Colombi Hotel, Freiburg im Breisgau. The hotel opened in 1957 and has been run since then by the Burtsche family, which makes it one of the few privately owned grand hotels left in a German city of this size.

History

The name is older than the building. The park and the neo-Gothic villa on its hill, the Colombischlössle, were laid out from 1859 for Maria Antonia Gertrudis de Zea Bermúdez y Colombi, a Spanish countess who settled in Freiburg after her husband's death. The villa later passed to the city and houses its archaeological museum. When the Burtsche family built their hotel on the opposite side of the park in the 1950s, they borrowed the countess's name.

The hotel was extended and rebuilt in stages in the decades that followed, and the family's second generation, under Roland Burtsche, took it to the top of the German classification, five stars superior, the only hotel in Freiburg to hold the grade.

Architecture and design

The building is a post-war block that has been reworked so many times that little of 1957 shows on the outside. The street front is restrained; the interest is inside, in a series of wood-panelled dining rooms and salons, and in the rooms facing the park, whose windows look across the trees to the Schlössle. The Münster spire is visible from the upper floors.

Rooms and suites

Rooms and suites are spread over several floors and wings, furnished in a classic manner with fabric wall coverings, carpets and marble bathrooms rather than the pale minimalism of newer hotels. The park-facing rooms are the ones to ask for. Suites at the top of the house add separate sitting rooms.

Dining

The Colombi's reputation in Germany rests heavily on its kitchen. The Zirbelstube, panelled in Swiss stone pine, held a Michelin star for many years and was for a long period the address for fine dining in the south of Baden. The Falkenstube and the Hans-Thoma-Stube, the latter named after the Black Forest painter, serve regional cooking from the same kitchen in a less formal register, and the bar keeps late hours in a city where most places close early. Baden wines from the Kaiserstuhl, twenty minutes away, anchor the list.

Wellness

A spa on an upper floor has saunas, a steam bath, a fitness room and treatment rooms. It is sized for a city hotel rather than a resort.

Weddings and events

The hotel's function rooms host weddings, company meetings and the receptions of the university and the regional institutions, and it is the usual choice in Freiburg when a dinner needs a five-star setting. Rooms range in size from small panelled salons for a board to a ballroom for a wedding party. Capacities vary with the layout.

Location

Freiburg's Old Town starts across the Rotteckring: the Münster, begun around 1200 and finished in 1513, is a walk of about eight minutes through the lanes with their Bächle, the open water channels that run along the streets. The main railway station is about five minutes on foot in the other direction, with direct trains to Basel in 40 minutes and to Frankfurt in about two hours. The Black Forest begins at the city limit; the Schauinsland cable car is 20 minutes by car. Basel-Mulhouse airport is about 70 kilometres south, Strasbourg about 85 kilometres north. For a luxury hotel in Freiburg im Breisgau, the Colombi has the advantage of standing at the point where the station, the Old Town and the park meet.