Spa saver break 4=3

Four nights with a weekday arrival (Sunday or Monday), of which only three are charged — arithmetically the cheapest way to spend four full days in the house. The start-of-week rhythm has a side effect that counts for more than the price advantage: on Mondays and Tuesdays the hotel is noticeably emptier than towards the weekend, the spa loungers are free, the sauna infusion schedule works without a queue, and the reserved table in the restaurant Galerie is ready earlier.

The hotel is a family-run four-star-superior house, a member of Relais & Châteaux, in Kaikenried on the Bavarian Forest Nature Park. The package runs from January to the end of June — the window in which the Bavarian Forest tips from winter grey into spring: first still sauna weather, later long walks across the fields and the wellness garden with its sun islands. Whoever wants to book wellness as a background programme rather than the main theme finds the most unhurried variant here.