South Tyrol is Italy’s northernmost province, a mountain country where German and Italian are spoken in the same valley and the kitchen joins Alpine and Mediterranean in one menu. Merano lies at its heart, a spa town of arcades, promenades and gardens, with vineyards and apple orchards on the slopes around it and the high peaks close above.
We open South Tyrol from the Avelengo plateau, 1,400 metres up and fifteen minutes by car above Merano, where San Luis Retreat Hotel & Lodges keeps twenty-six chalets and sixteen tree houses around a mountain lake of 5,800 square metres, in forty hectares of its own larch and spruce forest. The chalets are built of moon wood, each with a fireplace and a private sauna; the clubhouse holds a barn-sized pool hall, and an alpine breakfast is served in your chalet each morning.
The plateau has close to two hundred days of sunshine a year. Walking trails start at the edge of the forest, the Merano 2000 slopes are ten minutes away in winter, and the pale peaks of the Dolomites are within a couple of hours to the east. For more of the country, our Italy guide joins the mountains with Venice, Tuscany and the coast.
Within Italy, Venice is about three hours away by road, and the mountains pair just as naturally with the hill towns and estates of Tuscany.
