Method
Nine pairs, and no ranking
Eighteen hotels, nine straight comparisons. Each pair sets two hotels side by side on one shared scale and ends by naming two different needs.
Why pairs
A ranked list answers a question nobody actually has. Nineteen hotels in order of merit tells you what an editor prefers, not what suits the three nights you have. A pair asks a smaller and more useful question: given these two, which one is for you?
Pairing also keeps us honest. Two hotels only go together when they share a problem — a city centre, a building from the same decade, a season that ends in March. Once they share the problem, the differences are real differences rather than editorial taste.
Who does this
The site has run from Cologne since 2019. Three writers work on it and one photographer travels for it. We publish roles rather than names and portraits, because the method is meant to be checkable without knowing who wrote which paragraph.
Role
Buildings editor
Works on the structures: what was built, when, for what purpose, and what the conversion changed.
Role
Sections editor
Decides which hotels belong together, writes the pair introductions and holds the closing formula to two needs.
Role
Checks editor
Re-reads every page against current public sources, records the month of the last check and processes corrections.
Where our details come from
Public sources only: the hotels’ own published information, architectural and historical writing about the buildings, planning and heritage records, and the operators’ public statements about openings, seasons and rebranding. We compare hotels from public sources. We do not publish reports of personal stays, we quote no guests, and we run no ratings.
Where a fact is not public, it is not on the site. That is why you will find no room counts, no prices and no star classifications in any pair.
Our rules
- No hotel pays to be listed.
- We do not take bookings.
- We publish no prices and no star ratings.
- A pair never names a winning hotel.
- Every pair carries the month it was last checked.
What we have corrected
June 2026
A brand name
A Frankfurt hotel was still listed under its former name after a rebranding. The heading, the list line and the pair scale were updated on the same day.
February 2026
A season
One ice hotel was described as open through spring. The published season ends earlier, and the scale row now reads winter only.
November 2025
An access note
A Canadian resort was marked as reachable by public transport. It is not, in practice, and the note now says a car is needed.
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