The Grand Hotel Heiligendamm, first built in 1793, quickly became a spa retreat for the aristocracy of central Europe. But it has been a struggle to keep in going in modern times.

The Latin inscription on the pediment above the Tuscan-style columns of the Kurhaus reads Heic Te Laetitia Invitat Post Balnea Sanum. Which loosely translates as ‘joy awaits you as you emerge from your bath’.

A sentiment that is not so original, perhaps, given how many hotels today have spas, but then this is the Grand Hotel Heiligendamm, first established in 1793, which makes it Germany’s oldest and smartest seaside hotel.

The property was first established here, on the Baltic coast a dozen miles west of Rostock, at the instigation of the Duke of Schwerin. Besides the Kurhaus with its classicist facade, it comprises seven historic white mansions, surrounded by beechwoods on either side and with sweeping lawns down to a pier and a sandy beach.

It quickly became patronized by German aristocracy, by literati such as Proust and Rilke, and even by Russia’s Tsar Nicholas I. At its peak in the mid 19^th century it was a meeting place for Europe’s rich and famous, who came to bathe in the Baltic and to gamble at the first horse-racing course in Germany.  But then came two World Wars, the dismal curtain of communism, closure and decay.

Today it is back, and determined to roll back the years.

In truth, the Grand hasn’t had an easy ride even since it re-opened, post-reunification. In two short decades it was transformed from a crumbling ruin to a luxury Kempinski-steered property chosen by Angela Merkel to host 2007’s G8 summit. But despite all the associated publicity, complete with that iconic image of the world leaders in one giant tailor-made strandkorb (basketwork beach chair), it was bankrupt by 2012.

In truth, there were always going to be problems with trying to re-establish an elite beach resort on the Baltic in the era of easy air travel to the Med. Especially with no airport nearby.

Back in the day, the glitterati used to arrive at the Grand on a dedicated steam railway, built specifically to chuff them right to the front door. Today, the Molli, although charming, is more of a curiosity than a method of travel.

Then there’s the issue of retaining quality staff in a relatively remote location. Particularly because Mecklenburg-Vorpommern is the poorest of the German states, where old anti-capitalist attitudes still prevail. Moreover the beach at Heiligendamm is not much to write home about.

When it went bust in 2012, the hotel’s Perlenkette (pearl necklace) of villas had to be sold, and have since been reconstituted as luxury apartments. The remaining core buildings were bought by Paul Morzynski, a tax accountant from Hanover, who is working to re-establish the hotel by concentrating on the spa, the sanctity of the enclave and the quality of the food.

With these things in mind, he has added a spacious outdoor pool and seasonal staff accommodation. Interiors have been refreshed with silk fabrics, marble and brocade. All of it, of course, in the best possible taste.

The state visit of Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh to Germany from 23-26^th June has gone little noticed by most of the media, eclipsed by the likes of royal babies and G7s.  But it will be a significant one, and the first official visit since 2004.

Despite very strong family connections, the royal party will be ignoring the roots of the Hanoverians and the Saxecoburgs. Instead they will be concentrating on more contemporary locations, particularly Berlin, Frankfurt and the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp near Celle.

The first day, in Berlin, features a welcome at the Bellevue Palace by Joachim Gauck, Germany’s President, after which they will travel down the river Spree by boat to meet Chancellor Angela Merkel at her office. The two women will then lay a wreath at Germany’s Central Memorial for all the victims of war, before attending a state banquet back the Bellevue in the evening.

From Berlin, the royal couple will travel across to Frankfurt next day to visit St Paul’s church, greet the public in the Romer, Frankfurt’s reconstructed central square, and have lunch with the President of Hesse. That evening, back in Berlin, there will be a Garden Party hosted by the British Ambassador.

On their final day, the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh will start in Pariser Platz by the Brandenburg Gate with Berlin’s Mayor, then fly to Celle (near Hanover) to visit Bergen-Belsen. The latter was a Nazi concentration camp between 1941 and 1945 and the site is maintained as a memorial to the 70,000 people who died there.

The royal couple will lay a wreath at the memorial’s inscription wall after which they will return to Celle Military Airport, and back to the United Kingdom.

It’s a pretty heavy itinerary for anyone to complete, let alone a couple in their late 80s and early 90s.

I’ve just been out to Bavaria to check out the hotel – Schloss Elmau – where the G7 is having its big annual Summit over the 7-8^th June 2015. And a truly lovely place it is, too, with all imaginable top-end luxuries in a spectacularly pastoral setting in a valley of its own, surrounded by mountains.

The likes of Barack and Angela should feel well looked after in the very short time that they have here, because the hotel has a staggering array of restaurants – seven – and spas – four – for its 162 rooms. I’ve done a detailed report on the place which will appear in due course in the travel section of the Financial Times.

There is already a huge security presence sweeping the valley. We were stopped in our car by a man with a gun in his waistband, who didn’t want to know anything about us, but just kept us stationary for a couple of minutes whilst something else was going on, somewhere else.

Black saloons came and went from the front of the hotel, and CIA operatives have been attending the hotel’s morning yoga classes. A rumoured 17,000 police have apparently been assigned to the task of keeping everything safe, which is more than were on duty for the London Olympics. The locals are, of course, grumbling about the costs, plus the potential closures to their roads and railways.

What the G7 leaders won’t have time to do is explore the surrounding area, which is a shame. Some two hours hiking directly up the hill from Elmau is Schachen, the extraordinary mountain lodge built by ‘Mad’ King Ludwig II, with its pseudo Turkish interiors. One of Ludwig’s even more extraordinary palaces, Linderhof, is a hop and a skip away.

Elmau is in a deeply traditional and very Catholic neck of the woods, with the huge baroque monastery of Ettal and the quiet town of Oberammergau – scene of a huge Passion Play every ten years – within a half-hour’s drive.

The resort town of Garmisch-Partenkirchen lies 18km to the west, with the Zugspitze, Germany’s highest mountain, towering over it. The Zugspitze has a cog-wheel train and cable car to the top plus a glacier which the Germans cover with plastic in the summer to stop it melting. All very organised.

We were lucky enough to have an Alpenhorn lesson with Elizabeth Heilmann up on the Zugspitze’s peak, which certainly attracted the crowds.  Regrettably, however, this is not something the G7 will have a chance to do, although they’ll no doubt be making lots of noise of their own.

Otherwise, they’ll just whizz in, and whizz out again, 24 hours later. Maybe they’ll see enough of the region to make them want to come back again some other time.

War in the Ukraine? Euro crisis? Trans-Atlantic Trade agreement?

In recent days, Angela Merkel is rarely out of the news, as she has been playing a pivotal role on many international stages. The woman who Germans affectionately call ‘Mutti’ is currently in high demand in political quarters. Her patient diplomacy in Moscow, Kiev, Brussels, Berlin, Washington and Minsk is one of the stabilising factors many foreign heads have come to rely upon.

Abroad, she is resolute, logical and persistent. And perfectly suited to the role. Having grown up in the former GDR she not only speaks perfect Russian but is also able to understand the thought patterns and emotions of her Eastern European counterparts. Her gentle, conciliatory, ‘well let’s face it’, maternal style calms down hotheads and machos alike and achieves much more than the confrontational attitude others would bring to the table.

Nonetheless, she’s no pushover. But instead of threatening gestures she tells it as it is. Sanctions yes, weapons no. Shaky as it may be, the current ceasefire in Ukraine is to a great extent down to the German Chancellor and her ability to talk and persuade.

We all wish for world peace. Superwoman Angela Merkel is one of the few politicians who can deliver.

With a new government in Greece, the Euro crisis is far from over and Merkel has a lot of ground to cover.  She’s already met Alexis Tsipras and welcomed him with open arms. But has anybody told him what Mutti’s “friendly welcome” really means?

Her successes abroad are all the more surprising as she has a completely different reputation at home. Among her fellow Germans, she is known as a hesitant and opportunistic leader who succumbs to pressure like butter to a knife. After the problems at Fukushima, she caved in to public demand and U-turned on the question of nuclear power. And she heavily compromised with her coalition partner SPD on the minimum wage.

Maybe she is lucky that there are no pressing domestic issues at the moment and she can fully concentrate on her role as an international head of state. In future, however, and with the 2017 elections in mind, she’d have to make sure that her international successes are matched by domestic ones. If so, she has every chance of becoming the longest serving German chancellor, pushing Helmut Kohl and his 16 years off the top spot.

It is not just in the UK that Margaret Thatcher’s passing has provoked a mixed response. Former Chancellor Kohl, who will not be able to attend Margaret Thatcher’s funeral due to ill-health, has been brave enough to go on record in an interview saying that she was “difficult. Our relationship was difficult,” and that the British Prime Minister’s hostility had greatly slowed progress towards an integrated Europe. And indeed, recently released papers show how vehemently she opposed the reunification of East and West Germany, wanting Soviet troops to remain in occupation.

Angela Merkel, in many ways a softer form of the Iron Lady herself, has chosen to take a more positive line, suggesting that “the liberty of the individual stood at the heart of her convictions – Margaret Thatcher recognized the power of the freedom movements of Eastern Europe early on and lent them her support.”

But the fact remains that she had a very distrustful approach towards Germany, fearing its economic and political power. Online news-magazine The Local has selected some of her quotes on the subject.

“By its very nature, Germany is a destabilising, rather than a stabilising, force in Europe.”

“What you Germans are doing is not good for Europe.” (To Die Zeit publisher Josef Joffe in 1996).

“Germany has veered between aggression and self-doubt. The true origin of German angst is the agony of self-knowledge.”

“We beat the Germans twice, and now they’re back!” (On the subject of reunification, as quoted in the memoirs of former Chancellor Kohl).

All in all, these are utterances from woman who knew her own mind, and wasn’t afraid to stand her ground. But time has proved these kinds of attitudes to be rooted in the past, not in the present or the future.

What’s going on? Last week, in its travel pages, the Daily Telegraph was bemoaning the fact that so few Brits choose Germany for their holidays, praising, in this particular case, the beauty of Freiburg and the Black Forest. The Independent has been describing Dresden as a ‘rebuilt wonder’ and – hold your breath – the Sun has come up with ten (‘not nein’) reasons why the UK should love Germany. The latter piece appeared in answer to German tabloid Bild’s cry ‘Please don’t go, you’re so wonderfully crazy’, telling the UK why it is needed as a EU member. Both articles were full of clichés, as expected, but never mind.

However, the current UK-German love affair doesn’t stop there. Style-bible and über-cool publication Monocle has dedicated its current issue to Germany, telling its readers why the world needs the ‘new Germans: how Europe’s star economy uses business brawn, good design and Gummi Bears to win hearts, minds and tummies.’ A couple of months ago, David Cameron told an audience at a car parts plant in Redditch that the ‘Brits need to be more Germanic to help industry’, by training up more people to do practical jobs. And then there’s Lord Weidenfeld who just professed that Angela Merkel is the contemporary politician he most admires: ‘She’s got moral firmness: solid, rock solid!’ (a wunderbar description of her!).

So, to return to the start. What’s going on? What’s behind the UK’s new-found love for all things German? Well, first of all, for any German living in the UK (including the writer of this blog) all this enthusiasm for ‘contemporary Germany’ as a novel thing is a bit exasperating. Because, after all, if you’ve grown up in contemporary Germany, you know what it’s like and that the country is – surprise, surprise – modern, has a high standard of living, has some really very nice scenery, has a varied cultural scene and is populated by people who have no problem at all with anyone mentioning the war (there goes another cliché). Germans like the good things in life including food and drink and are on the whole quite a decent bunch who do get irony.

What it boils down to is that the UK seems to have discovered modern Germany a bit late. Might be because of the war, might be because it’s nice to cling on to certain stereotypes; Germans do the same, the other way round. That this love-in is happening now is surely part of an ongoing development that has taken place over recent years, including the fall of the Wall, the emergence of Berlin as the place to be for the youth of the world (any age group, in fact), oh, and not to forget the World Cup in 2006 when the country staged its Sommermärchen (summer’s tale) which will forever have a special place in the nation’s collective memory.

In the end, the ‘why’ of the affair doesn’t really matter; it’s nice to see.  And after years of Germany being the more passionate partner in the UK-German relationship, maybe things are about to change.

Judging by the frequency with which locals kick the bucket in Midsomer, the worms must be well fed.  And Krimi (crime programme) loving Germans tune in every week to see what Barnaby will find this time. It’s usually on after the popular crime series Tatort (‘crime scene’), and turns Sunday nights into a true murder fest. Even Angela Merkel, a country girl herself, loves Barnaby. She reputedly watched an episode with David Cameron when she visited him at Chequers. Perhaps the chatty ladies, taciturn farmers and other quirky characters, common features of village life everywhere, are not unknown to her. And whenever Barnaby is off duty, Lewis checks alibis in Oxford.

My personal British crime favourite must be Evil under the Sun with Sir Peter Ustinov as Poirot straining his little grey cells. I have seen it so many times I could play all the parts myself. In fact, the film’s title has become quite a quip in my family, spoken with the typical Poirot accent: “there iz eevil under the sun”.

Germans have a loving and lasting relationship with British crime programmes. If you flick the channels on a lazy afternoon you are bound to come across the odd Miss Marple film with Margaret Rutherford pursing her lips in thought. The quaint English country life is seen as the archetypal setting for the British Krimi, with eccentric detectives sniffing out murder. Recently, there have also been repeats of the strangely translated sci-fi/crime series The Avengers or, as it’s rather whimsically known in Germany, With umbrella, charm and melon. For years this had me wondering when the melon would make an appearance, until I finally realised that it was just a clumsy way of saying bowler hat.

More recently, when the modern take on Sherlock aired earlier this year, the otherwise terrestrial-channel-shy under 30s loved it. Possibly, Guy Ritchie’s blockbuster had helped boost viewing rates, but the show itself is just one example that Britain has a knack for great crime, even reinventing a well-known theme, whether as literature or on the small screen. Seriously, I can’t wait for more. Let’s hope there’s plenty more evil under the sun.