USP Beautifully elegant hotel in the heart of Germany’s leading spa town. The views from the balconies make this like having a bedroom in Kew Gardens.

AMBIENCE There’s an historic yet balmy air to the hotel. Original paintings, including one by Joshua Reynolds and a portrait of historic guest Queen Victoria bedeck the walls. There are enough spas to keep a troupe of footballers’ wives ecstatic – which is just as well because Lady Beckham and co arrive on June 3.

EXPERIENCE You can hire a whole private spa for yourself in this hotel for £373 a day, excluding treatments. I’m not famous, so I make do with the regular Kanebo one, where I have a bath in lotus oil and milk (which smells like baby formula), prodded by a shiatsu therapist and have ten different creams rubbed into the lines on my face. A clinic linked to the hotel offers cosmetic dentistry and Botox, but at the time of writing there was no facility for a St Tropez spray-on tan – de rigeur for a footballer’s wife.

FOOD Kitchen staff can concoct 700-calorie-a-day menus on request or the English ladies can try the Medici restaurant next door, where they can nibble sushi washed down with mineral water extracted only on a full moon (I kid you not, it’s called “Luna Llena”), and contemplate their next purchase (Chanel watch or Versace umbrella?).

IN CROWD Young and old women parade about in jewels and bathrobes. Europeans in search of designer spa and retail healing.

WALLET WATCH Double rooms start at £233 a night and spa treatments cost extra. Ryanair (0871 2460000, www.ryanair.com) flies from Stansted to Karlsruhe Baden-Baden (20 minutes from town centre) from £26 return.

NEED TO KNOW Brenner's Park Hotel, Baden-Baden (00 49 7221 9000; www.brenners.com)

Times recommends

• Oasis of the Seas: the Times review
• The 20 best new year party places to stay
• Green Spaces 2009: are you the winning writer?