Parkhotel Stuttgart Messe-Airport, WorldHotels Elite

In Echterdingen near Stuttgart, the Parkhotel Stuttgart Messe-Airport, Leinfelden-Echterdingen, Germany, is a stylish hotel with direct subway links to the airport, the trade fair and the city centre, with an indoor golf range, a microbrewery bar with an open fire, a restaurant with an open kitchen, free Wi-Fi, a focus on natural materials and green energy, and well-finished rooms. The airport, the Stuttgart trade fair and the subway are all close by, with the city centre a short ride north. Vineyards and wooded hills wrap the plateau above the city, and forest trails and lookout towers crown the wooded heights. Stuttgart is the birthplace of the car and the capital of Baden-Württemberg, a city cupped in vine-covered valleys. The Mercedes-Benz and Porsche museums celebrate the cars built here, a grand palace square anchors the centre, and terraced vineyards climb the slopes right to the city's edge. A major art gallery hangs works from old masters to modern classics, a pioneering television tower rises above the woods, and wine villages now folded into the city pour their own wines each autumn. Mineral springs bubble up beneath Stuttgart in one of Europe's largest reserves, feeding historic bathhouses on the city's northern side.