What makes this hotel so special? First of all, it’s incredible location. At the vigilius mountain resort guests can only check in via cable car! A 7 minute ride brings you up to the secluded hideaway in the South Tyrolean mountains. This process helps leave a heap of stress behind in the valley with your car, it’s a bit like entering a different world.
Architecture by Matteo Thun
Upon arrival in the mountain station of the cable car our luggage is taken care of and we check in at the hotel right across the cable car station. What strikes you first is the architecture – a combination of traditional and modern elements – balanced perfectly by natural materials and it’s location amongst old larch trees.
Matteo Thun, the acclaimed South Tyrolean architect, has lived up to his motto “Eco not Ego” up here perfectly.
Clean lines and natural materials are balanced perfectly to create harmony!
Light plays a vital role in the design of the hotel.
Eco hotel principles
The receptionist brings us to our room and we follow her along the hallway, which is incredibly modern and doesn’t really give away what lies beyond. The warm and cozy room has an open floor plan – and the only separation between the bedroom and bathroom is a clay wall, that also functions as a natural heater. Ecological principles are taken very seriously at the vigilius mountain resort – hence there’s no TV or AC in the rooms and even the WIFI gets shut down at night.
The rooms have incredible views over the South Tyrolean mountains.
The core of the resort: the Spa
We unpack our bags, jump into the bathing robes and decide to visit the Spa first. Just a couple of steps away from our room there’s the spa reception, a couple of treatment rooms, a small sauna and steam room and then THE temple of the hotel: the pool area.
The infinity pool at vigilius mountain resort – all to ourselves!
Facing to the Southeast a huge glass front opens up the view over the valley. From here you can see sunrise to sunset, the vineyards and apple fields below and then the most important part: Two heated pools. One infinity pool to swim and one indoor and outdoor whirlpool (the size of a regular pool), which is only separated by a glass sliding door.
The whirlpool is the highlight of vigilius mountain resort.
This is where we spent so much time, that our fingers got all wrinkly and soaked.
November & the off season advantages
We spent countless hours in the spa area of the vigilius mountain resort as it feels like the core of the hotel. It’s warm and cozy, the water temperature is perfect (we can’t say that about every hotel pool unfortunately) and due to the season of our visit we are alone at the Spa most of the time.
In November – in between seasons – the vigilius mountain resort gets as quiet as ever.
The hotel has 41 rooms, but during our visit in November we’re pretty sure they weren’t fully booked. The surrounding skiing area only opens later in December and the second lift up to the top of the mountain (called “Vigljoch”) is closed. If you ask us, November might be the perfect season for a visit, it doesn’t get more calm and quiet than this!
Culinary offering at vigilius mountain resort
The only downside is that the two restaurants at the hotel have an alternating schedule in this season, which means one of them closes each night. We didn’t mind as much, because we wanted to test both restaurants anyways… 🙂
The “Restaurant 1500” is where breakfast and dinner is served.
First off we had dinner at “Stube Ida”, the traditional restaurant at vigilius mountain resort. The vegetarian options aren’t plentiful here (as South Tyrolean cuisine is also quite meat heavy), so we opted for poached eggs with spinach and tomatoes, something that doesn’t feel very traditional and also tasted rather “neutral”. All in all the kitchen seems to be based around strict principles of health and focuses on keeping ingredients very natural, with little to almost no salt and heavy spices.
Poached eggs for dinner – not our favourite dish to be honest.
Regional ingredients, selected with care
The breakfast is a true highlight though. It’s clear that they only use quality proofed ingredients, there’s amazing bread, a wonderful regional cheese selection, you can get your Café Latte with homemade almond milk and select a fresh egg dish cooked to your liking. And don’t even start us on the fruit selection and the local juices.
Breakfast at “Restaurant 1500”.
The second night we ate dinner at “Restaurant 1500”, which is the fine dining restaurant of vigilius mountain resort. After an amuse-gueule (goat cheese) we indulged in a chestnut-hay-cream soup, that was absolutely divine. Following the soup we took up an Italian tradition and ordered pasta as a starter, boy – that was a good idea (yet filled us up immediately). The homemade Pici (a thick spaghetti like pasta) with an autumn truffle sauce and fresh truffles was creamy, heavy, but really really worth the calories!
Chestnut-hay-cream soup – our favourite dish!
There was little space left, but the main dish turned out to be really light and airy – we had ordered the “Vegetables from Harald Gasser’s garden”. This garden project by Harald Gasser focuses on permaculture and preserving over 500 old vegetable and fruit rarities. Our plate was filled with different kinds of beets, turnips and other root vegetables – perfectly blanched and topped with a thyme crumble. The perfect dish for any vegetarian!
Permaculture vegetable rarities – served to perfection.
The perfect traveller type for vigilius mountain resort
So, who’s the right person to visit vigilius mountain resort? The quiet seekers, tradition lovers, book readers, promenaders and slow living enthusiasts. Once you’re up here there’s not a lot to “do”. In fact, the hotel isn’t called “resort” by chance, you’ll spend your days here. Yes, you could technically always take the cable car to go down to Lana. Or you could also rent e-bikes or go on an easy hike at the Vigljoch. But most of the time you’ll probably enjoy the spa – or when you come in summer – the sun terrace.
If you’re looking for peace and quiet, the vigilius mountain resort is the right place for you!
There’s an activity program and various spa treatments, you can order a special Fondue dinner or simply sit in the library or at the fireplace and enjoy how slow time can move for once. That is the true asset of the vigilius mountain resort, it slows down your pace.
We “hiked” up to the top of Vigljoch, which took us about an hour – and very casually.
During our stay the hotel hosted it’s own “literature days” with literature walks in the morning, readings in the afternoon and daily bedtime stories delivered to the room during the turndown service. They are truly trying to make your stay interesting and offer enough to keep the days filled, without overwhelming your senses.
The library at vigilius mountain resort is a place to relax and discover their mountain stories.
Please note: The hotel allows children, but only a maximum of 6 kids at once at the whole hotel. Also the spa area is closed for kids from 5 to 10pm. Therefore it’s rather a hotel for adults than for families with kids. During our stay there were no kids at the vigilius mountain resort, but mostly couples and a small group of literature enthusiasts.
Don’t go looking for action & adventure here, the vigilius mountain resort is about calming the senses.
Our verdict
What we loved about the resort: The architecture, the location, the quiet & calm, the spa. What we didn’t love as much: The service was sometimes quite slow (maybe that’s even on purpose, to force you to slow down a bit… we’re not sure 😉 ), but we’re usually not in the mood to wait too long for each course to get served. But that being said, we rarely felt that the day had so many hours like here!
Disclaimer: We were invited to the region by the Official Tourism Board of Lana. The views in this report are our own.