Hotel Goldener Berg, Oberlech

With more gold medal Olympic skiers than any other alpine village, a bevy of royal and aristocratic guests, and a reputation for the best food and wine in the Austrian alps, it’s surprising that more people haven’t heard of Lech – but that’s the way those who have prefer it. While the glitz-seekers flock to flashier resorts, in Lech things are done with traditional Austrian elegance.

For those in the know, however, the charming hamlet of Oberlech, perched 1700 metres above sea-level, just five minutes by bubble lift from Lech is home to one of the mountain’s best-kept secrets: The Hotel Goldener Berg. It’s a lovely chalet hotel perched on a sunny terrace all on its own, with idyllic views across the valley and the town below. In winter no cars are allowed, so it is both peaceful and safe for children. The hotel has been run with panache by generations of the Pfefferkorn family, who take genuine pleasure in looking after their guests, many of whom return every year. Serious skiers will relish the hotel’s ‘ski to the door’ position right on the slopes and the chance to ski with Daniela Pfefferkorn, the hotel’s disarming current owner, who represented Austria in the Downhill a few years ago, The hotel’s proximity to the Oberlech lift (which runs from 7am to 1am daily) means that it’s incredibly easy to get around.

The hotel’s 40 rooms and suites have now been built or renovated and each has a balcony and superb mountain views. For families, the Goldener Berg has a fantastic complimentary supervised kids’ programme – the ‘Kiddy Club’ - with indoor and outdoor fun (including meals) scheduled for small guests from the age of 3.

Whilst the kids are being entertained, the grown-ups will appreciate the sensational Alpin Spa. The main wall of the spa building is floor-to-ceiling glass, offering breathtaking views of the mountains, and the pine wood and stone meshes seamlessly with the external environment. The mezzanine level relaxation area, part of which is embedded in a snug grotto – replete with cradle-like, rocking sunloungers – is one of the cosiest I have come across. The Spa contains two saunas (bio and Finnish), a steam room, pool and wonderful large outdoor Jacuzzi. A plethora of treatments are available to soothe aching muscles after a hard day’s work on the slopes – I had a brilliant aromatherapy massage with Barbera, and my boyfriend was ‘manhandled’ (in a good way, I am told) by the spa’s excellent resident physiotherapist, Marc Shrader. The homemade ‘Almstern’ product line – employing high-grade extracts of Edelweiss and other nourishing mountain-sourced substances - is used both in the spa and the hotel toiletries. For those in search of more exotic massage techniques, the hotel boasts a Bangkokian practising Thai massage. The spa also houses a small yoga studio-cum-gym, and the hotel is a member of Welltain, a new healthy mountain lifestyle programme that makes the most of the alpine environment to achieve greater fitness.

A workout in the hotel’s gym might be advisable, because the hotel’s Gault-Millau award-winning cuisine is home cooked and delicious, with lots of Austrian specialties such as Strudel, Schnitzel and Kaiserschmarr’n (a caramelised, chopped up pancake), which can be enjoyed in any of the hotel’s four restaurants. As in the spa, so in the kitchen, stress is placed on local sourcing – the menu lists the nearby farms and suppliers from which the products derive. This emphasis on indigenous products forms part of the hotel’s eco-ethos, which is also manifested in its use of solar panels bio heating system.

The hotel operates a ‘Dine Around’ policy to enable guests to dine in each of the restaurants. The Alter Goldener Berg restaurant dates from 1430 and has handsome dark wood panelling and candle lighting. The family has been amassing a fine wine collection for the last fifty years and the result is a veritable treasure trove of vintages, considered one of the best wine cellars in the region.  

Relaxed, yet refined. The Goldener Berg is perfect for those seeking a first class ski holiday in supremely comfortable surroundings with a classic Austrian atmosphere. The Pfefferkorn family has created a place with that inimitable gemütlichkeit – meaning warm, cosy and hospitable – that puts it in a class of its own.

 

Hotel Goldener Berg, Oberlech 117, 6764 Lech/Vorarlberg, Tel. 05583/220 50

Hospiz Alm Hotel, St Christoph

The pretty Tyrolean village of St Christoph is just up the valley from St Anton, which enjoys a well-deserved reputation as the Mutter und Vater of all après-ski party towns. St Christoph, though its pistes are easily accessible from St Anton, could scarcely be more different. It is a genteel place, dominated by one hotel, the 650-year-old Hospiz, which somehow blends bags of Alpine character with extreme chic. It’s a neat trick. In my experience of the swishest Alpine hotels, chic and character tend to be mutually exclusive.

My boyfriend and I stayed at the Hospiz Alm Hotel in January. I had heard that the Hospiz was one of the best places to eat in the Alps, but nobody had told me that it was also one of the finest places to drink. Although the hotel was rebuilt after burning to the ground in 1957, the ancient wine cellar remained intact. It is as atmospheric as you might expect of a cellar daring from 1386, and contains a small vaulted dining room where favoured guests, who have included the crowned heard of Sweden, the Netherlands and Spain (not all at the same time), can be assured privacy. The Hospiz cellar contains mostly Bordeaux, of which the hotel’s patrician owner, Adi Werner, is a devotee. I gazed wide-eyed at a 1926 Chateau d’Yquem, and was duly astonished to learn that he keeps the really valuable stuff elsewhere.

At the adjacent Hospiz-Alm, a lively restaurant at the foot of the nursery slopes , there is a famous helter-skelter slide down to the loo and a unique wine cellar housing only big bottles, over a thousand of the, from three litre double-magnums to 18-litre methuselahs. The bright young sommelier, Hannes Mossauer showed me a Heath Robinson contraption, about the size and horsepower of a small family saloon, for extracting the corks. He also told me proudly that only six methuselahs were produced of the excellent 2000 vintage of that superb Saint-Emilion, Chateau Cheval Blanc, and all six were snapped up by the Hospiz. Even at 27,000 Euros each, there is no shortage of interest, but, magnificently, Herr Werner won’t always sell.” He needs them to have the passion,” explained Bruno.

Bedrooms are intelligently configured for families, and the children’s club takes care of the little monsters until 9pm. There are also myriad diversions inside the hotel to while away the time not spent skiing, eating and drinking, which are represented visually in the hotel’s logo, newly designed in 2011. The design seeks to convey the symbiosis between culinary delights, sport and art. Florian Werner is an art fan, collector and artist – his works and those of other famous contemporary artists are scattered thoughtfully throughout the hotel and are clustered in the hotel’s very own art gallery. A particular novelty is the ‘Artists in Residence’ project – artists are invited to the hotel to paint and guests are invited to watch and engage with the artist at work. 

Works of art pervade the wonderful 2000 metre square spa area, which is spread across two floors, and which contains an enormous pool, saunas, steam room and a vast, very well-equipped gym. There are also numerous dexterous therapists on hand to massage piste-pounded muscles. I don’t think that I have ever been on a ski holiday before where a gym visit seemed like a good idea post-piste, but the gym at the Arlberg Hospiz Hotel was such a delight to visit that my work out felt strangely pleasurable (and how else to justify that seventh course at supper)?

A word of warning – or perhaps encouragement - depending on your point of view. The Arlberg region is one of Europe’s snowiest places; you are more likely to be marooned than suffer snow shortages. The roads out of St Christoph were both closed for over twenty nail-biting hours towards the end of our stay. This was, however, a once-in-a-decade occurrence, and besides, I cannot think of anywhere in the world I would rather be stuck than at the Hospiz Alm Hotel.  

The Arlberg Hospiz  Hotel

The Werner Family
A-6580 St. Christoph / Arlberg
Austria

Tel: +43 (0) 5446 2611
Fax: +43 (0) 5446 3773
Email: info@arlberghospiz.at