In Mainz's green outskirts, the Atrium Hotel Mainz, WorldHotels Elite, Mainz, Germany, is a family-run hotel set among quiet orchards yet quickly linked to the city by a fast road, with 22 meeting rooms, a garden, an indoor pool, a big sauna, a Roman steam bath and an aroma bath, free Wi-Fi, a restaurant serving regional food and good wine, and individually designed rooms, suites and apartments.
Out here among the orchards it is calm and quiet, an easy retreat for meetings away from the centre, while the heart of Mainz is only a short drive away. The Rhine and its wine country are close too, with riverside paths and ferry crossings nearby.
Mainz is a Rhineland city of wine and history, the place where Johannes Gutenberg invented printing with movable type in the fifteenth century. A thousand-year-old cathedral watches over the market square, the Gutenberg Museum tells the story of the printed book, and St Stephen's Church glows with deep-blue windows by the artist Marc Chagall. The Romans founded the city two thousand years ago, and grand old palaces recall its powerful past.
Vineyards roll out around the city, and a lively carnival fills the streets each winter, giving Mainz a festive spirit all its own.