The Dolomites, From the Inside

The Dolomites are not like the rest of the Alps. The rock is pale, almost white, and at dawn and dusk it turns pink — the enrosadira, a local word for a local phenomenon. South Tyrol, the Italian province that holds most of them, is German-speaking, Austrian until 1919, and quietly obsessed with building well. The result is a density of good modern mountain architecture found almost nowhere else: hotels of spruce and stone with enormous windows, built by families who have run the same site for three generations and hired a serious architect for the fourth.

Forestis Dolomites

On Brixen's Plose Mountain, sixty-two minimal suites in spruce wood and dolomite stone face the peaks directly, and a stone pool slips from inside the building to the open air. Forestis is the purest expression of the regional style: almost no colour, almost no ornament, and a view treated as the only decoration required. The site was chosen in 1912 as a sanatorium for the quality of its air, which tells you something about the silence.

Forestis DolomitesBrixen, ItalySee the hotel →

COMO Alpina Dolomites

Wood and quartzite on the Alpe di Siusi — at 1,850 metres, Europe's largest high-altitude Alpine meadow, and largely car-free. Sixty rooms in a modern lodge where the Dolomites fill every window. The plateau is the appeal: in summer it is walking country of a very gentle kind, and in winter it connects to the Val Gardena ski network without ever feeling like a ski resort.

COMO Alpina DolomitesCastelrotto, ItalySee the hotel →

Vigilius Mountain Resort

A hilltop sanctuary above Lana reachable only by cable car — no road, no cars, forty-one timber-toned rooms with deep bathtubs and floor-to-ceiling windows. The absence of a road is not a gimmick; it changes the rhythm of a stay entirely, because leaving is a decision rather than an impulse. Matteo Thun's building lies low along the ridge like a fallen trunk.

Vigilius Mountain ResortLana, ItalySee the hotel →

Miramonti Boutique Hotel

Above Merano, forty-four clean-lined rooms with floor-to-ceiling mountain views, a sixteen-metre infinity pool that appears to end in mid-air, and a sauna set in the forest. Five places to eat and drink, which is generous for a hotel this size, and a good base if you want the mountains but also want Merano's thermal baths and vineyards half an hour below.

Miramonti Boutique HotelAvelengo, ItalySee the hotel →

Schgaguler Hotel

In Castelrotto, a contemporary exoskeleton facade wrapped around forty-two rooms of chestnut and resin, with a fourteen-metre indoor pool. The Schgaguler family rebuilt their existing hotel with the architect Peter Pichler rather than starting elsewhere, and the restraint shows — it is the most urban-feeling building on this list, dropped into a village of onion-domed churches.

Schgaguler HotelCastelrotto, ItalySee the hotel →

Two seasons work here and they are completely different holidays. June to September is walking, via ferrata, and mountain huts serving canederli at 2,000 metres. December to March is skiing on the Sellaronda circuit. October and May are quiet, cheap, and often closed — check before booking. Fly to Innsbruck, Verona, or Venice, and hire a car; the valleys are not well connected to each other by train.