HOTEL LA COUR DU ROY - SAINT-LOUIS ALSACE
Cozy Old World Elegance at the “three borders” of Europe
The
Hotellerie La Cour du Roy (Heart of the King Hotel), with its elegant
half-wood and roughcast
stone
neo-Renaissance Alsacian façade
stands at a corner in the old town center of Saint-Louis, France (not
to be confused with the American city with the arch). The distinction
of Saint Louis is that it is the closest town to the Basel-Mulhouse EuroAirport
in the lower end of the Alsace region that borders
Germany and Switzerland across the Rhine River. The Hotel La Cour
du Roy, named for the Gambrinus King who supposedly invented the beer
making
process, has only been a hotel since 2002,
with 30 rooms converted and updated from the former garages and businesses
that had inhabited the spot since
being
bought
from the brewery in the 1920’s. The hotel is 3 stars but with a
mid-level luxury comfort feeling at a quite reasonable price for a romantic
stay or air travel stop-over.
The room designs retain the unique original
half-timber and plaster walls
from
the turn of the last century in a quiet and comfortable atmosphere, with
open beams in the common areas and the upstairs bar. The hotel’s
restaurant offers regional Alsace cuisine and protected outdoors tables
in the courtyard where beer wagons once unloaded their barreled cargo.
A stroll along the main street of Saint Louis the Avenue
Bâle finds "winestub"
restaurants with sidewalk tables popular with locals where Alsacian wine
(oh, that the sweet Gurwurzterminer) and French and German beers can
be sampled along with the traditional Alsace dish of "Tarte Flambée",
rather like a crisp pizza with onion slivers and bacon under a thick
cheese-like
cream. Movie
theaters and shopping mall areas are also nearby.
Saint-Louis is
not really itself a tourist town, the third largest city in the Haut-Rhin
region in the area known as Pays des Trois Frontières
(Land of the Three Borders), but it is centrally located for wandering
around three countries within half an hour. Originally founded by
King Louis XIV in 1684, the town became important as a customs stop
on the
road
between
Switzerland
and France
and was
the first Alsacian town liberated from the Germans in WWII. The area
between Saint-Louis and Basel along the Rhine is rather industrial with
tank farms and shipping ports, and St. Louis is the home of the Franco-German
Institute for Research (figuring out the next generation of super secret
Euro aircraft aerodynamics and laser ballistics).
The EuroAirport sometimes referred to as the Basel-Mulhouse-Freiburg Airport serves several European discount airlines like Easyjet and AirBerlin for hoping around Europe. The airport is actually about 20 minutes from either Mulhouse in France and Basel (Bale) Switzerland and 30 minutes from Lorrach, Germany. The EuroAirport is the closest gateway European Airport to Alsace in France, Germany’s Black Forest and western Switzerland (arrivals and departures at EuroAirport sometimes refer to a France side and a Swiss side, but they are actually the same terminal, just different gates for Common (shengen) Europe and Swiss passport control).
The Hotel Cour du Roy is a 10 minute taxi ride from the airport, a bus from Basel (15 minutes) also runs past to the airport. Activities and sights within the area include the Rail and Auto Museums in Mulhouse (see Citi du Trainand Cite du Automobile), boat tours on the Rhine of Basel and it’s many museums. The Alsace Route des Van (see Wine Route Alsace), the “Monkey Mountain” Nature Park and Castle Haut-Konigsbourg in Kintsheim (see King’s Fairy Tale Castle), the ruins of Castle Rotteln near Lorrach, and balloon flights over Alsace at Wintzfelden.
Other hotels nearby convenient
for the EuroAirport are the Ibis St Louis Centre and
a Formule1 Motel just outside the Airport gate for a quick motorist overnight. © Bargain
Travel Europe
Book a deal at the Hotel La Cour du Roy
Find
best hotel and travel deals in Alsace
on TripAdvisor
See Also:
MOLSHEIM
AND MUTZIG
