About the Althoff Grandhotel Schloss Bensberg

77 hotel rooms and 34 suites combine the baroque style of the historic hunting lodge with timeless, modern elegance - a combination for which the Althoff Grandhotel Schloss Bensberg received the Interior Design Award in 2016.  Rooms await you with every imaginable amenity, from Wi-Fi and minibar to international TV channels and a coffee capsule machine, all available free of charge.

Enjoy award-winning culinary delights in four different variations. Gourmets will be delighted by modern menus of New German Cuisine at the 2-star Restaurant Vendôme, headed by Joachim Wissler. In the Trattoria Enoteca, appreciated by wine connoisseurs, the best of Italy is put on the plate. At the Champagne Brunch in the Restaurant Jan Wellem, you can indulge in a variety of delicacies every Sunday and the modern-classic Salvador Dalí Bar will surprise you with top-class art, creative drinks and delicacies from the castle kitchen.

A unique wellness concept awaits you in the "4 elements spa by Althoff". Inspired by the traditional teachings of the four elements, everything here revolves around wholeness and the harmony of body and soul. Relax in the pool and sauna area on over 1,000 m2.

Whether it's a business event, a family celebration or a wedding: we will take care of your event with a lot of experience, individuality and competence right from the start. Your very special occasion deserves a special attention to detail, for which the Althoff Grandhotel Schloss Bensberg is renowned.  In our prestigious castle rooms you can celebrate extraordinary events in an extraordinary setting.  

Cologne Countryside
The Bensberg subway station is a 3-minute walk away. From there, the journey by direct train to Cologne city center takes only 30 minutes. Koelnmesse can be reached after a 20-minute drive.

Versailles and Winchester Castle served as architectural models when Prince-Elector Johann Wilhelm II of Duesseldorf – shortened to Jan Wellem in the Rhineland dialect – ordered the construction of his “Maison de Rétraite” at a prominent site on the Bensberg mountain terrace with a breathtaking view of the cathedral city of Cologne.

While he had at first conceived of the imposing structure as a hunting lodge for his second wife, Maria-Luisa of the Medici family, Johann Wilhelm changed his plans following a visit to Versailles and ordered his architects to build a castle whose dimensions already impressed visitors in his own time – including Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

When the Prince-Elector died in 1716 without ever having used his “Rhenish Versailles”, his widow soon returned to Italy. She took the numerous artists, plasterers and painters with her. Thus the building remained unfinished and was used over the centuries as a military hospital, cadet school, boarding school and refugee centre. Then in 1997 the Aachener & Münchener life insurance company bought the seriously dilapidated building and, with an investment of 75 million Euros, remodeled it as a grand hotel of the international luxury class. In year 2000 the Grandhotel Schloss Bensberg was finally opened.