Picture: Andrea Cazzaniga
We made it to Alpina Dolomites no thanks to the map on my iPhone, which directed us not to Via Compatsch, high on Alpe de Siusi in the Italian Tyrol, but to an entirely fictitious address up a totally different mountain. We’d heard the resort was isolated, and so persisted with the ascent of a near-vertical dirt track long after more sensible souls would have realised their mistake. It was only when we were driving on actual glacier that I started to think we might want to turn the car around. On ice. On a mountainside track, barely wider than the car itself, over a vertiginous precipice. It was only when I was outside of the car, chipping the ice away from under the back wheels so that they could gain some traction, that I started to think that wasn’t just a bad way to start a trip – it could well have been a premature end to it too.
Alpina Dolomites looked like it had just landed from outer space when it opened right next to the Alpe di Siusi cableway station in the heart of the Italian Dolomites in December 2010. The shell of the main building – all sleek glass and grey stone – sits next to a rotunda of connecting suites atop a self-service skier’s restaurant that resembles a big budget Ken Adam James Bond set: a contemporary reworking of modernist architecture, with echoes of mid-20th century Californian and Palm Springs International Style (angular terraces; wishbone-shaped sci-fi columns; huge outdoor lounges complete with firepit). The exterior is cool grey and wood, the interior palate is tobacco and sand with lots of pale larch flooring, taupe linen sofas and antler chandeliers. Everything inside is meticulous and relentlessly contemporary without feeling at all cold or uncomfortable.
You can start skiing mere metres from the front door, but if the idea of skiing fills you with dread (or indeed disinterest), there’s more than enough to sustain a long weekend here, even when you’re entirely snowbound – and it’s great fun riding the cable cars, as I did, to stump about in knee-deep snowdrifts and take in the views. The spa and pool complex is immense, and there’s a very sexy alfresco hydrotherapy pool (some loungers outside would be a welcome addition though – there may be ice on the ground, but you can still tan). A Venetian spritz (Prosecco, Campari and soda) on the outdoor terrace while gazing at the mountains or reading a book makes for a lovely afternoon. Staff provide blankets when it gets a little chilly.
I visited the resort’s “beauty farm” late in the afternoon. The spa offers branded treatments using Sothys Paris and Aveda products. My treatment involved an excoriating facial treatment – so many blackheads! – followed by the application of a gold facemask, which, although the recipient can’t see it, feels wickedly indulgent. You imagine your face a pharaoh’s, burnished and idealised, and emerge for dinner properly reborn.
The Mountain Restaurant serves a five-course tasting dinner, with two options for each of the courses; on the evening we ate there, polenta-crusted prawns and a consommé with cheese dumplings – horrible yet oddly moreish, as dumplings often are – were followed by mains including red wine risotto with candied strips of duck, and a beetroot taglioli in a sour cream sauce. Service is as good as you’d find in any Michelin starred dining room, and the food is generally excellent. During the day, the little wooden cabins of the café-style Stuben serve sandwiches, rather boozy cakes, and hot and cold drinks.
Bedrooms are on the huge side, and the bathrooms are beautiful – wall and floor tilings have a slightly industrial bronzed patina, with a sepia-toned digital print of a forest backlit on one wall. We loved Superior Suite 321 – while 427 is larger and has its own fireplace, 321’s is the best balcony. None of the 56 rooms has an iPod dock, and the hotel threatens a €12 charge if you lose your room card, both of which detract somewhat from the air of relaxation. The hotel’s own-branded bathroom products contain local hay extracts (no gold, though). From the oversized unfinished leather seams on the furniture to its razor sharp typography, Alpina Dolomites is one of the most stylish resorts in Europe.
Alpina Dolomites, Via Compatsch 62/3, Alpe Di Siusi, Castelrotto, Italy
0471 79 60 04; alpinadolomites.it