Inflight Magazine of Brussels Airlines

In bed

The ultimate hotels for the discerning traveller who wants a truly special place to sleep in style

Hotel Arts BARCELONA
19-21 Marina, tel. , www.hotelartsbarcelona.com
As visual totems of nuevo Barcelona go, Hotel Arts must be one of the most famous. With its 43 floors of bright white steel and glass, it even manages to overshadow Frank Gehry’s adjacent Fish sculpture. Inside, it’s no less impressive. Suites are like something out of a Hype Williams video; everything comes in an expensive-looking palette of muted neutrals and rooms are lit by huge, seaview windows.

The rooftop spa is sold as the big draw and it has its fair share of famous fans (we spotted Heather Graham during our brief sojourn), but with a €40 entrance fee – that’s before you even look at the treatment menu, although it’s waived if you do book something – those customised scent spritzed through the suite, not raking in a film star’s salary might want to concierges keen to know if there’s anything skip it. Better surely to revel in the little touches they can do for you) that really justify the (chocolate-dipped strawberries on arrival, price tag. Rooms from €335 per night.

Roomers FRANKFURT
85 Gutleutstrasse, tel. , www.roomers.eu
The moody and sensual Roomers is arguably the sexiest hotel in Europe’s financial capital, Frankfurt. The 117-room hotel offers deluxe living, with high-sheen finishes softened by the ample use of velvets, satins and silks.

This is a hotel to see and be seen in. Choose from the seclusion of a high-sided booth in the restaurant with its European-inspired cuisine, or sprawl on the cushions that line the benches on the terrace, with the courtyard laid out in front of you. The small and dark hotel bar has something of a private members’ club feel to it and the cocktails here are unbeatable – it’s hard to find mixologists elsewhere who give so much to their trade.

The lavish experience continues in the guestrooms, with their marble bathrooms, faux-fur bed throws and a couple of iced shot glasses for the bottle of vodka in the mini bar. In deference to the working community that stays here, the top floor has a series of meeting rooms, including a projection suite with blocky bespoke furniture lined in white leather.

Best of all is the biorhythm spa, where wooden strips trace a curvaceous pattern across the walls of the gym, around the Jacuzzi and into the sauna. Active, programmable massage beds are counterbalanced by sunken loungers filled with warmed glass beads for a more passive experience.

It’s rumoured Pamela Anderson was among the first guests to stay at Roomers. The hotel is far more unobtrusively luxurious. Double rooms with breakfast from €135.

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