Hotel Vernagt am See

The hotel advertises as a "Wanderhotel" and that's exactly what the location is excellent for. Don't expect shops or nightlife (outside of the hotel bar) anywhere nearby, but you don't need any when you're here.

Hotel service is nothing short of excellent: Frienly, helpful, good suggestions, flexible, etc. They went the extra mile of preparing a 6:30 am breakfast just for us when we left for an early mountain tour one day.

The hotel has a restaurant and a bar, but also serves lunch outside if you're not up in the mountains. The evening menu is creative and fresh and goes much beyond the normal Wienerschnitzel style that's still too often found in Tirol.

The key summer activity is of course to go into the outdoors and there's enough of that around the hotel! We only had great weather so did not have time to use the indoor pool but it did seem to be nice. There are hiking paths leaving right from the hotel, and alternatively you can drive a few minutes (e.g. to Kurzras) to start a walk from there. The hotel also offers a 2-hour "climbing for dummies" course once a week and can make bookings for the weekly Oetzi glacier-tour to where the iceman was found in 1991 - highly recommended!! Contrary to the info on the flyer though that is NOT an easy walking tour that I would send my parents on... At least a reasonable physical shape and some alpine experience is highly recommended.

As noted above, the large rooms seem to have been renovated and appear to be really nice. The normal rooms are outdated and could use some renovation. Aircon is not available but also not needed at this altitude: Despite temperatures of over 30 degrees C in Meran, the hotel's altitude creates low 20s at daytime and nice cool evening air. The road by the hotel does not go further than Kurzras so there's no through-traffic to keep you awake at night.