My first stop during my stay in the Black Forest was Freudenstadt, at the Historic Hotels of Europe property the Hotel Palmenwald. Now a very accomplished spa hotel, it has had a chequered history and a relatively large number of different incarnations during its decades of existence through war and peace. It even has the cartoons and graffiti of soldiers stationed in it during the Second World War to prove it. Although I took in and described many notable features of both the hotel and the town, the Wellness Spa was so heavenly it was all I could do to drag myself away from it.