When the weather begins to get colder and darker, the urge to go for a spa weekend increases. I long to run around with a fluffy bathrobe and slippers, slipping in and out of saunas and falling asleep on a lounger after reading a few pages of a good book.

So when the minus temperatures crept into Munich I couldn’t resist looking at spa hotels. I feel like in recent years, spa hotels have become enormously expensive. I don’t really want to pay 400€ a night and I can’t justify paying that when I have a sauna and pool with my gym membership anyway. I came across the Grandhotel Pupp on Instagram (yes, I give travel tips but I also use Social Media to find travel tips too!) and I was shocked at the price of the hotel.

We paid 200€ for one night (Saturday to Sunday, for 2 people); this included breakfast and access to the spa (pool, saunas and gym). If you go during the week you can get an even cheaper price for around 150€. 

The History of the Hotel 

The hotel itself is known in the celebrity world, it oozes luxury and many celebs have stayed here such as Johnny Depp, Leonardo DiCaprio, John Cleese and more. The hotel was also the set of James Bond Casino Royale and The Last Holiday. A favourite part of our stay was wandering around the hotel and finding corners that we recognized from the films!

The Rooms

We booked the modern room, which is a good size room that has recently been renovated. It has lots of space with a lovely view of the forest (which I can imagine is very pretty in Autumn). If you book an ‘older’ room, (though the decor is perhaps a little more dated) you get even more space and double doors opening into the room.

Parking

The hotel has a carpark outside which is very convenient. It did cost 20€ per night to park there though, which if you are staying for a whole week can add up quickly. Considering the price of the room was quite cheap and we were only staying a night we didn’t mind so much, but free parking for hotel guests would be better.

The Spa

This bit of the review is a little trickier, the spa itself is a gorgeous swimming pool with hidden corners filled with jacuzzis, and the sauna area is nicely decorated with lots of oil diffusers making it smell incredible. However, for the size of the hotel, the swimming pool and amount of saunas (one Finnish sauna, one herbal sauna, one steam room) just isn’t enough to accommodate everyone – even my gym in Munich offers more saunas than the hotel. After checking in at 3pm we went to the spa area ready to relax, but everyone else had the same idea, which led to overcrowdedness and the pool being full of children (I would hope for a seperate kids pool in a spa hotel, but sadly this wasn’t the case.)

The next day we went to the spa when it opened at 8am and although there were a couple of people, it was super quiet and it was how we envisioned it. We had an early morning sauna session and swim, and afterwards proceeded to breakfast. If you are coming here for a 100% relaxing weekend with no other activities, I don’t think I could recommend it because the spa is so small. You have to be strategic with the timing (eg. get up early, go just after guests have checked out and before the new guests check in), but that does take away from the relaxing vibe that you want to create for yourself. I can also imagine that during the week is quieter than the weekend, so maybe it wouldn’t be so busy. The other option would be paying around 110€ an hour for a private sauna.

The Food

We chose not to eat at the restaurant for dinner, as they only offered one vegetarian option and it didn’t sound very exciting to us. The restaurant’s interiors look stunning though and if they did offer more options I am sure we would go. 

We went to Bechers Bar for a drink in the evening and the cocktails were amazing. The service was excellent and they had a story for each cocktail which they told while presenting the cocktail to you. I like that they offer James Bond’s cocktail: The Vesper Martini 007. I’m not a martini drinker but I think it would be cool if they served it in a more similar glass to the one Bond drank from.

I highly recommend getting ‘The First Kiss’ cocktail, pictured below.

Breakfast is open from 7am to 11am and is served in two beautiful breakfast rooms. It has the usual offerings of fruit, bread, jams, cereal (including soy and coconut milk which is a big plus), soft pastries and of course hot food such as eggs made in various ways, baked beans, sausages etc. The orange juice is freshly pressed and you also get free glasses of prosecco with your breakfast, which does give a luxury feel.

For a five star hotel I would expect a chef to cook at least eggs freshly and on request, as the hot food they offered was only semi warm, which was slightly disappointing. Otherwise everything else tasted great, the fruit was fresh, the juices were freshly pressed, there was always someone there to make you a coffee and the staff were lovely.

The Location

The Grandhotel Pupp is located in Karlsbad – an area known for its healing hot springs. You can very comfortably walk into the beautiful town from the hotel, which is perfect to explore the shops and visit the fountains with the healing water – I will write another blog post on Karlsbad!

How To Get There from Munich

We live in Munich and don’t own a car. We decided to rent a car for the weekend (for some reason it was cheaper to rent it from the airport than from the city centre) and it was just under a 3 hour drive from Munich Airport. Unfortunately it is trickier to get there via public transport, as trains don’t go directly and there are no direct buses from Munich.

Summary

I really liked this hotel, even if there are some things that could be improved. If you are a James Bond fan or just in need of a weekend away then this is a great option – I would highly recommend it. 

Let me know in the comments if you are a James Bond fan or if you have any questions about the hotel.

Thank you for reading,

Larissa

The Blonde Jetsetter