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Find the best hotels in the Alps, from mountain spa and wellness retreats to the alpine ski resorts, design hotels to modern luxury escapes and boutique guesthouses. Explore with The Aficionados.
During the summery months, the alpine peaks transcend into sweeping carpets of lushness that is so green and bright you need shades. Fill your thoughts with lush, sweet meadows, wild flora, cooling glacial springs, fragrant herbs and the rich scent of fertile lands and rural life. Once our friend, winter, returns, explore these mountain resort hotels for ski, snowboarding and sporty adventure.
The Aficionados crew have lined up some 50+ designer boutique hotels and luxury alpine retreats from Italy, Austria, Germany and Switzerland – each individually hand-picked and curated into this edit of the Alps.
Character, local-ness and, of course style, define these crafted boltholes of heritage, luxury and modern sensibility. Altitudinous air aplenty, this is the perfect kick for you adrenalin junkies out there, but is also suited for those of you seeking egoistic me-time wellness with holistic and dare we say, life-changing spas. Frankly, it is the perfect place just to take it all in.
So get clued up on our ALPINE HOTEL EDIT - cool boutique dens of mountain living with heart. This is the Alps with luxury and design as your style guides.
History, design, calmed wellness and an interior of modern heritage make this hotel-apartment refuge close to Merano the perfect pitstop for some downtime and closeness to nature.
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Hike with the cows in this Alpine adventure of outdoor Austrian idylls, a famed foodie hotspot, the ladies have it good up here in Vorarlberg's Bregenzerwald.
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Affectionately known as the Monte Carlo of the Alps and the playground of the royals and the Habsburgs, Austria's Bad Gastein is a wunderkammer of faded belle-epoque glamour and energetic creativity.
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Using simplicity, curiosity, and a deep respect for nature, Maloja is now known for its innovative and highly original skiwear and cycling kit.
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This year you find yourself dreaming of something slightly less usual, it’s time to take your holiday down-time underground. Into Bad Gastein’s healing caves.
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Turrell’s latest skyspace is such an iteration, located in Lech, a little skiing town in the Arlberg mountains, Austria. At a height of almost 1800 meters above sea-level, The Skyspace-Lech, a lightroom inside a stone building at the end of a 15-metre tunnel, is set in alpine terrain, and is only accessible by foot or by skiing – so wear your walking shoes and your best raincoat.
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A photography exhibition 'Messner meets Messner' by Lumen opens this winter at the heart of the South Tyrolean Mountains and Dolomites on the top of Mount Kronplatz.
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Adventure cycling through the Alps is in itself a wondrous experience – pedalling the heights through the UNESCO Dolomites is the peak (no pun intended) and is surely on every cycle-adrenalin-junkies’ bucket list.
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The chilled design hotel Miramonti sits perched atop Merano, nestled in forestry with spectacular, Bond-like views. Modernity subtly reigns whilst snuggling up to Alpine traditions – the vibe is relaxed, chilled and most definitely easy-going.
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A legendary crash pad of royalty, celebs and lovers of Arlberg, this is the chic chalet hotel and spa of consummate five star style. Interiors are dedicated to Alpine heritage and modern luxe running through the hotel’s family history.
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Wrapped by the Dolomites, this modern eco resort pairs mountain lifestyle with simple elegance and luxury wellness vibes. An authentically pastoral location accented with the local Ladin culture that feels at once both holistic and fun.
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Mesmerhaus, once the sexton’s home, is today a wonderful style chameleon of ornate exteriors and simplistic elegant interiors. The effect is of refined originality, a heritage house reduced to its essence through a calming language of decorative stillness.
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An eye-catching designer hillside bastion of cool contemporary interiors framed by lush alpine forests and snow-capped mountains, where simple luxe shakes hands with age-old tradition.
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Remodelled over the centuries, 'Cinematic Italian' is the interior design mantra that consummately knits the restored historical elements to the nostalgia, style and flamboyance from the height of Italian film and design of the 1960s.
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A design refuge for those that like their head in the clouds but feet firmly placed in architectural modernism, set at 1850 metres, the hotel is lofty enough to be able to ski straight out of its door, as well as hiking in summer.
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A curated style jungle of mid-century furnishings, abstract modernism and bespoke pieces are flavoured by the original pine panelling dating back to 1848 - and all this cuteness is wrapped in a canvas of wild herbs and mountain eye candy.
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The Hirschen "Young since 1755", is a love pot of heritage, art, culture, food and style – a Wunderkammer of familiar nostalgia reframed for the nomads who seek roots and prefer to sleep with history.
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Originally conceived as the village schoolhouse back in the 1930s, the traditional house, with alpine curb appeal of larch shingles, gabled rooftop and green shutters frame the lattice windows, is now a fabulous small design hotel and restaurant surrounded by the Bavarian alps and pastures.
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An architectural-statement, this minimalist hideaway in the Dolomites is the perfect basecamp for those who appreciate design, food, comfort and doorstep nature.
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Strikingly modern design and humble heritage are the trademarks of Tempel 74 Apartments in the heart of the Mellau-Damüls ski region, just 500m to the ski lifts. Centuries-old Alpine craftsmanship marries pioneering architecture.
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Sleep under medieval frescoes, sweep down labyrinthine corridors, lord it up on the lofty ramparts or stroll through the Mediterranean garden, admiring the ivy-clad castle backdrop.
A fabulously new take on alpine traditions is dramatically edged by the mountains and sweet Mother Nature. A perfect nesting spot, close to a favourite corner of Bavaria, stunning Berchtesgaden.
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Unapologetically vivid, this preferred pad of intellect and creativity is awash in Art Nouveau flamboyance tamed with clever 1950s-inspired design interventions. A stylishly cool home of the arts, brushed with boldness.
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Affectionately termed by its motif of ‘chic-shock-Baroque’, the Hotel Weißes Kreuz, originally built in 1465, is a timely marriage of its opulent Baroque past with a high concept design that pays homage to the rhythm of change that has taken place over centuries.
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Austere beauty and chunky grandeur are the inaugural hallmarks of this 15th century castle and glacial-grey monolith perched on the slopes of South Tyrolean village Villanders / Villandro in northern Italy.
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Built into the original Medieval town walls of Hall, this former guilders’ house of traditional Tirol style has stood here for well over half a century with records dating back to 1450. Today, behind the rose petal façade, lies the small Kontor Boutiquehotel.
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A smooth design den pearled in white with an interior design that is eminently simple: a clean alpine aestheticism that borrows from Italian design, the Danish principles of hygge and a touch of sweet sophistication in the Japonesque detailing.
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Ullrhaus is a hotel of muted luxury, where cool design marries Alpine soul and a minimalist edge. Located in the resort of St Anton in the Tyrolean Alps, home to some of the Alps’ most exhilarating skiing.
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A fabulously humble basecamp of good design for kindreds of style, Brücke 49 is a collection of rooms, suites, studios and apartments in the high-in-the-mountains creative enclave, Vals.
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The vigilius mountain resort was created by architect Matteo Thun, inspired by a fallen tree and the surrounding beauty of San Vigilio’s mountaintop landscapes. This wellness sanctuary rewrites the blueprint for an eco-design hotel, reached appropriately only by cable car.
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Ceramics, pencil-lead greys, putty linens and aged furnishings headline at this restored design guesthouse of original simplicity in the cute market of Lana, South Tyrol.
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Drenched in Tirol originality and crafted by a setting of mountainous vistas. This luxury ski & spa hotel is all about boutique personality, passion, delicious food and a perfect location that hugs the snow-capped plateau, with windows that frame endless Austrian mountain eye-candy.
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A fabulously chilled 1920s villa-guesthouse decked in creative glamour wrapped in mustard yellow, it has just ten gorgeous suites and is set to a rhythm of vineyards, vegetable gardens, velvets, rattans, good food, and a pool.
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A groovy icon from the seventies, Seehotel Ambach, presides over the shores of Lake Caldaro in Italy’s South Tyrol with its perfectly formed, curvaceous marshmallowy walls of laid-back glamour and a canvas of tangerine, vert and oxide red, which drape mid-century furniture pieces.
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Wonderfully humble, this authentic exclusive-hire farmstead hideaway dating back to 1885 comes with the mandatory choc-box appeal of a rural Alpine chalet besieged by the hush rhythms of lush green pastures, ancient forests and hum of the mountain waters.
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A design smoothie wrapped in vineyards and mountain eye-candy; this villa-hotel masters the polarity of heritage with its sedated tones of taupe framing dramatic vistas of vert. Modernity, fresh elegance and a natural hand are cornerstones within the restored traditional walls of Das Wanda; a modern, designer, natural retreat with a strong South Tyrolean heart.
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In a heritage fusion of aesthetic restraint, the aged inn dates back to 1450 and we are privy to its past in all its whispered glory. Once a post office, coffeehouse and coppersmith, the townhouse has been skilfully reinvented by ASAGGIO architects.
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Close to the Tirol mountains of the Tux and Zillertal Alps, this design hotel of chilled style and nostalgic tradition, steps away from the chocolate-box picture-postcard image with creative art installations and a casual approach to life in the alps.
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Rising up like delicate meringue-whipped peaks, mirroring the Dolomites panorama that surrounds it, the architecture and design of Hotel Milla Montis create an impact.
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With mountain eye-candy stretching out in every direction, this nest egg of casual style is the perfect bolthole for urbanites who love the rural idyll framed by modernity and crowned by its fabulous rooftop infinity pool of sheer wow.
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Small, delicate and exquisite, this creative residence is fully stocked with vintage family pieces and curatorial heritage and includes a fabulous Orangerie thriving between the greenest of Mediterranean gardens and the whitest snow-capped peaks.
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A fabulous retro-design, five bedroom holiday home of smooth vintage in Merano, this design vacation-rental is gorgeous, a luxury haven dotted with thoughtful mid-century design pieces, layered with love.
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Birch and smoked oak hug the thick walls and capture the house’s DNA from the days as a farmhouse barn. Once a resplendent Renaissance home to the Bishop and favoured lodgings for the merchant traders heading along the Romanesque Via Claudia Augusta.
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Fabulous holiday apartments with panoramic views and an interior palette that borrows from the surrounding beauty and captures the purity of nature with a modernist hand.
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Cuboid, measured and precise, Casa Al Sole is emblematic of the Italian Rationalism architectural style of Italy in the 20s and 30s. Renovated with precision and scrupulous attention to detail, the house is a meticulous restoration of purity and simplicity.
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Bijou refuges crafted deep in the countryside or clinging to the wild coastline, these hideaways bring style to their natural location.
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Pitstop here for a bucket-list dispatch which jumps off the treadmill of busy on a journey through the moi realms of wellness, escapism and curation.
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Who was it that said it's better to have millions of people doing sustainability imperfectly, rather than a handful doing it perfectly?
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Capture the essence of the Mediterranean from cool luxuriously crafted boutique hotels and villa retreats to the makers and artisans who populate the region with products of style.
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