Courtesy of MIRAMONTI Boutique Hotel
Somewhere along the way, getting a decent night’s sleep on vacation turned into a whole industry, complete with smart mattresses, sleep coaches and pillow menus long enough to need a table of contents. MIRAMONTI Boutique Hotel, a family-run perch high above Merano in South Tyrol, has taken a pleasingly old-fashioned view of the whole business with its new Forest Suite, based on the idea that most of us sleep better facing a wall of trees.
That is quite literally the setup, as the king-size bed sits squarely in front of a floor-to-ceiling pane of glass, turning the forest and its craggy rock formations into the room’s main event, so the last thing you see at night is the same view that greets you at dawn, give or take a curious squirrel. The room has the pared-back confidence of a good Copenhagen apartment, all pale natural wood and local porphyry, the reddish volcanic stone you’ll spot in walls and paving all over this part of the Alps. Fritz Hansen furniture keeps things suitably Scandi, and a freestanding Alape tub stands ready for the long soak your calves will be begging for after a day on the trails.
The real showstopper is outside, where a private terrace leads onto a little bridge that carries you straight into the woods. At the other end, a whirlpool all your own faces the mountains, with a pair of sun loungers parked among the pines. It’s the kind of arrangement that makes you feel slightly smug in the best possible way, especially with a glass of local Lagrein in hand as the light slips behind the peaks.
Courtesy of MIRAMONTI Boutique Hotel
Rest is something of a house obsession at MIRAMONTI. Guests can sign up for forest therapy, a gentle guided wander through the trees that’s far more enjoyable than its clinical name suggests, then thaw out in the hotel’s Japanese-inspired Onsen Pool before a personalized treatment. Dinner leans on what’s grown and raised nearby, which in South Tyrol means a satisfying collision of Alpine heartiness and Italian finesse, where a plate of speck can share the table with handmade pasta, and nobody bats an eye.
The coffee deserves its own mention: the hotel roasts its own specialty beans at 1,830 meters above sea level, in what’s believed to be one of Europe's highest coffee roasteries. That’s a wonderfully niche bragging right, and a very good excuse to linger over a second cup on the terrace.
Parents, take note, because while the Forest Suite is built for blissful quiet, the rest of MIRAMONTI is surprisingly well set up for smaller guests. The children’s playroom is genuinely impressive, the sort of space that keeps kids so happily occupied you might actually make it to the Onsen Pool with a book, and that balance of grown-up calm and family fun is harder to pull off than most hotels let on.
Courtesy of MIRAMONTI Boutique Hotel
Rest is something of a house obsession at MIRAMONTI. Guests can sign up for forest therapy, a gentle guided wander through the trees that’s far more enjoyable than its clinical name suggests, then thaw out in the hotel’s Japanese-inspired Onsen Pool before a personalized treatment. Dinner leans on what’s grown and raised nearby, which in South Tyrol means a satisfying collision of Alpine heartiness and Italian finesse, where a plate of speck can share the table with handmade pasta, and nobody bats an eye.
The coffee deserves its own mention: the hotel roasts its own specialty beans at 1,830 meters above sea level, in what’s believed to be one of Europe's highest coffee roasteries. That’s a wonderfully niche bragging right, and a very good excuse to linger over a second cup on the terrace.
Parents, take note, because while the Forest Suite is built for blissful quiet, the rest of MIRAMONTI is surprisingly well set up for smaller guests. The children’s playroom is genuinely impressive, the sort of space that keeps kids so happily occupied you might actually make it to the Onsen Pool with a book, and that balance of grown-up calm and family fun is harder to pull off than most hotels let on.
Courtesy of MIRAMONTI Boutique Hotel
The setting helps, too. South Tyrol belonged to Austria until the end of the First World War, and you can still feel that double identity everywhere, from the bilingual road signs to menus that switch between dumplings and risotto without missing a beat. Merano, just below, made its name as a spa retreat for Habsburg high society (Empress Elisabeth spent winters there), and its arcaded old town and riverside promenades make for a lovely half-day detour whenever you can bear to leave the woods.
MIRAMONTI bets that daylight, warm water, and a long look at the trees will do more for your sleep than any gadget on the market, and judging by the view from that whirlpool at dusk, the house is very likely to win.