Lake Spa Hotel SEELEITEN

There’s nothing that catches the eye of a mountain-hotel aficionado quite like an Italian hotel with a German name. It’s the sort of thing that only happens in South Tyrol, the Alpine corner of Italy. About midway between Verona and Innsbruck, Austria, not far from Bolzano, is where you’ll find the Lake Spa Hotel Seeleiten. It’s set by the side of Lake Caldaro, in a spectacular wine-producing valley surrounded on all sides by mountain peaks.

The hotel itself is eye-catching as well, a long lodge-like structure surrounded with a sort of timber exoskeleton. The rooms and suites are attractively modern, retaining a bit of knotty pine for Alpine tradition but generally tending towards a contemporary simplicity and a sophisticated sheen. The single rooms are smallish, but the junior suites are generous, and by the time you’re in a suite (or an apartment) you’ll have more space than you know what to do with.

Wellness is an area of particular focus — there’s a substantial spa with a wide range of treatments, as well as a trio of pools: one indoor, one outdoor, and one a lake-like “water world” with its own sandy beach. Activities include anything you can do on the lake, as well as golf, tennis, hiking, biking, and tours of the region. And those vineyards in the middle distance aren’t just for show — along with the hotel’s Alpine/Mediterranean cuisine you’ll have the opportunity to taste wines from the hotel’s own winery, as well as others from the immediate area.