Where to stay this winter: Europe’s coolest ski hotels

Experienced skiers will confirm that it is not only about where you ski, but also where you stay after a day on the slopes. Europe’s best ski destinations are also home to some of the best hotels in the world, with elegant spa facilities, spectacular Alpine views and enviable ski-in ski-out access that completely sidesteps the tiring task of lugging equipment through town. While the grand dames of the ski scene are well known, there is also a brand-new generation of hotels bringing fresh energy and, in some cases, more affordable prices on the slopes. Here is our round-up of the most exciting mountain stays in Europe.

Hotel Aurelio, Lech, Switzerland

This little gem of a boutique hotel in the heart of picturesque Lech has just 10 spacious, contemporary Alpine rooms set within a traditional mountain lodge. Inside, the fluid, muted modern design by architects Mlinaric, Henry and Zervudachi takes in a restaurant and lounge bar with a roaring fire framed by stag antlers on the ground floor, plus a cosy, elegant underground spa retreat. Connected by a tunnel, Chalet Club Aurelio, which sleeps 16, offers the privacy of a mountain home while giving access to all the hotel’s facilities, though guests can retreat to its cinema, library and large living room, alongside a dedicated spa area. A mezzanine-style balcony overlooks a three-storey living space, with a majestic chandelier as its centrepiece.

In the restaurant, which can be divided with curtains, the friendly, welcoming staff serve excellent, beautifully presented Austrian seasonal and regional cuisine (the schnitzel with cranberries is particularly irresistible, as are the hearty, healthy à la carte breakfasts that will set you up for a day on the slopes). In the underground ski room, there are dedicated lockers and changing areas. It is equipped with heated boot racks, and lockers are stocked free of charge with snacks, water, sunscreen and scarves. After a day on the slopes, head to the underground pool to soothe tired muscles. There is also a thermal suite including a sauna, a large steam room, experience showers, a cold plunge pool and a jacuzzi. The spa’s signature treatment is the Dreem Distillery post-ski massage, a fully restorative full-body massage designed to boost circulation and ease fatigue and muscle aches. It guarantees you will drift off to sleep instantly.

Nearest ski resort: Lech Am Arlberg

Price: rooms from around €430 per night

COMO Alpina Dolomites, Italy

Andrea Cazzaniga

Set in the heart of the Dolomites on Alpe di Siusi, Europe’s highest Alpine plateau, its ski-in ski-out location offers direct access to the slopes in winter. If you arrive at night during ski season, you will be greeted by winter stillness, broken only by the hum of snow cannons preparing groomed runs for morning descents and the splashing of bathers easing tired muscles in the outdoor pool, shrouded in dreamy clouds of steam. As you would expect from this brand, wellness and the spa are at its core, with a health-focused COMO Shambhala menu, plus generous Tyrolean and Italian dishes and excellent Alto Adige wines for those who do not want to hold back. All the cosy, wood-clad rooms face the slopes and have a balcony or terrace. Each day, apples picked in the valley are left for guests, along with filtered bottles of still and sparkling water. It feels pleasantly old-fashioned: a simple phone with a coiled cord gives you quick access to reception, and switches dim the lights (there is no irritating iPad here).

Nearest ski resort: Val Gardena

Price: rooms from around €585 per night

GRACE LA MARGNA, St. Moritz, Switzerland

Opened last year, GRACE LA MARGNA is the new arrival in St. Moritz. In fact, it is the first luxury hotel opening in the town in the past half-century. A breath of fresh air in many ways, GRACE LA MARGNA brings new life to the local landmark Hotel Margna with a modern extension that pays homage to its previous incarnation while looking firmly to the future. Bright, airy contemporary spaces are a welcome change from the more traditional world of St. Moritz.

A short walk from the station, facilities include a luxury spa, several dining options ranging from aperitifs to à la carte, and a bar that is set to become a popular local spot. There is also a sports shop offering ski and e-bike rentals depending on the season, and the hotel arranges transport to the local lift system, so you can go from a gourmet breakfast to the slopes in no time. We warmly recommend an Old Fashioned at No. 5 and the truffle mac’n’cheese at Max MORITZ for post après-ski replenishment.

Nearest ski resort: St Moritz

Price: rooms from around €520 per night

The Cōmodo, Bad Gastein, Austria

Bad Gastein was once the most glamorous village in the Austrian Alps, famed for its healing waters and elegant Belle Époque architecture. But hard times hit the village, and from the early 2000s onwards it had an end-of-the-line feel, almost forgotten. Now that is changing, thanks to a passionate, creative crowd breathing much-needed new life into the place.

The Cōmodo is part of a new wave of hotels, restaurants and co-working spaces bringing that energy, and it is also one of the most stylish addresses in the Alps right now. A mid-century mood runs through the former clinic and health retreat, with vintage and custom-made furniture bathed in mountain light. The 70 rooms and suites feature bespoke wallpapers and carpets, and most look out over the valley from generous balconies. Bad Gastein’s history as a place of healing can be felt in the soothing spa, the two dry saunas and on the sunny terrace. If you love mid-century design, mountain views, Alpine living and dreamy duvets, The Cōmodo is absolutely worth your time.

Nearest ski resort: Bad Gastein

Price: rooms from around €235 per night

Experimental Chalet, Verbier, Switzerland

Mr.Tripper

Parisian cocktail and hospitality heavyweights Experimental are behind this retro hotel, which is probably the coolest address in the “Alpine Ibiza”. And cool in the sense of looking great and having fun, not in a way that feels intimidating or inaccessible. This is a hotel for everyone and every age, whether you are here to ski and plunge into cold water, enjoy cocktails and clubs, or both. The visuals are seductively distinctive: mid-century modern meets Alpine style, with interiors made for Instagram. The 39 rooms strike a perfect balance of charmingly retro and ultra-cool, and the top-floor suites offer private terrace jacuzzis.

Down in the spa, the jacuzzi is strategically positioned beside the bar, so from 6pm you can tap on the glass and order a cocktail through the window. With its trailblazing Experimental Cocktail Club roots, the bar is rightly a destination in its own right, as is the Frenchie restaurant by chef Gregory Marchand. At night, the after-party almost always ends next door at Farm Club, a Verbier institution for more than 50 years and a celebrity favourite. The hotel’s ski concierge service is a real game-changer. In partnership with Les Ruinettes, all ski equipment rentals, as well as clothing or goggles, can be arranged at their nearby shop. Everything is then transported and stored in the hotel’s lower ski room, cleverly fitted out with boot and glove warmers, along with lockers. A free shuttle runs straight from the back room to the nearby lifts.

Nearest ski resort: Verbier

Price: rooms from around €213 per night

Sonnwies, Dolomites, Italy

Georg Roske

You can feel the unique atmosphere at Sonnwies, an exclusive family ski hotel, as soon as you arrive. Perhaps it is the mutual understanding shared by all adults with children. It is a place for parents who want to enjoy the finer things and locations in life, no matter how much their little ones or teenagers may test them, with UNESCO World Heritage Dolomite slopes, organic fine dining and drinks, and luxurious yet eco-friendly design and decor. Fortunately, the many creative activities on offer in the excellent kids’ clubs and baby clubs will likely head off any looming tantrums, from pony riding and alpaca cuddling to finding their own eggs for breakfast on the small farm and taking part in performances in the large theatre. Access to a 900-metre run and a lift is included, with easily arranged private ski lessons for ages 2.5 and up. Beyond the farm-to-table food, wines, fruit and cheese, the daily afternoon tea, cakes and self-serve ice cream, Sonnwies’ crowning glory is its five pools, including a shallow option with a cinema screen, fast, scream-inducing slides and an indoor-outdoor heated pool sending up steam, perfectly positioned for swimmers to admire the snow-covered mountains nearby or the campfire when night falls.

Nearest ski resort: various in South Tyrol

Price: rooms from around €585 per night

Highland Base, Kerlingarfjöll, Iceland

Iceland has truly been a “land of fire and ice” lately, with recent eruptions on the Reykjanes peninsula causing the temporary closure of The Retreat at Blue Lagoon, a 60-suite hotel with an underground geothermal spa. Fortunately, the new sister property of this sustainability-focused wellness company, a year-round off-grid refuge for extreme adventurers, lies 180 kilometres away, and on another planet, deep in Iceland’s vast, mostly frozen interior, which remained unexplored until the 1930s. Highland Base in Kerlingarfjöll, a huge reserve of snowdrift-covered peaks, glaciers, lava fields and silence, could just as easily be on the Moon. Getting there is, in itself, a mission. In winter, after arriving at Skjol Basecamp, 90 minutes along the Golden Circle from Reykjavik, it can take two to five hours of “floating” across untouched snow in customised Super Jeeps. Angular Highland Base huddles in the valley like a Nordic minimalist space station, with a 28-room hotel and six capsule-like lodges occupying abandoned structures left by pioneers who came before. The lodges, with sunken living rooms, Polaroid-like windows and hanging ponchos, are designed using sustainably aged wood and concrete by Icelandic firm Basalt Architects, the architects behind Blue Lagoon. There is also the option of a sleeping bag in the A-frame huts left over from a 1960s ski school. Activities include cross-country skiing, snowshoeing and hiking, as well as jumping into geothermal baths to watch the Northern Lights after dinner and a warming shot of Brennivín.

Nearest ski resort: Kerlingarfjöll

Price: rooms from around €527 per night

Juvet Landscape Hotel, Norway

Michael Kowalski

Regional property investor Knut Slinning opened Juvet in 2010 after buying an old farmhouse and hiring Oslo architects Jensen and Skodvin, who had worked on a striking viewing platform in the area. With its low-impact, camera-like pods that create a sense of total immersion in nature, it became a design-blog sensation and is often copied in both execution and concept. The place also became a magnet for fictional billionaires: you could see it as a billionaire’s home and a robot prison in Alex Garland’s eerie AI thriller “Ex Machina” (2014), and as the Roy family’s home in the fourth season of “Succession”.

The seven original Landscape Rooms remain a masterpiece of glass-and-wood minimalism, with just a hint of slightly masculine mid-century Scandinavian design. Each bed looks out onto a different stretch of river, with no people and no curtains, and you can linger in your own thoughts. Over the years, Slinning has added two Bird Houses treehouses on the valley slope, cabin-like with platform beds on high mezzanines, and the Writer’s Lodge, a two-bedroom house with Los Angeles Case Study elements designed for longer stays.

Nearest ski resort: Arena Overøye Stordal Alpine Center

Price: from around €585 per night for two people with half board

Le Refuge de Solaise, Val-d’Isère, France

@ThibaultMicoews

A former cable-car station in Val d’Isère, now a fun ski hotel with beautiful views, Le Refuge de Solaise is one of the highest places to stay overnight in France. Ski-in ski-out access guarantees you will be the first to leave tracks in fresh snow each morning. All 16 bedrooms have magnificent mountain vistas, and there are also four suites that feel like private chalets, plus a 14-person dorm with eight single beds and three double beds. You will find sushi and Thai noodles on the menu alongside pumpkin soup and tartiflette.

The restaurants offer even more of those epic views across the peaks, and there is a 25-metre indoor pool and sunken hot tubs in the wellness centre, as well as a children’s playroom. But really, you are here for the pristine slopes.

Nearest ski resort: Val-d’Isère
Price: rooms from around €165 per night

Faern Arosa Altein, Switzerland

Romain Ricard

The first Faern outpost opened in Arosa in December 2022, bringing its modern, design-led approach to an otherwise traditional area. Interiors blend elements of the original building, wood panelling, glossy marble columns and floor-to-ceiling bookshelves in the Library bar, with sculptural furniture, terrazzo-effect floor tiles and smart, space-saving wardrobes in the bedrooms. Walls are dotted with inspired retro artworks that evoke nostalgia for ski trips past; each piece was set on the surrounding slopes to bring elements of the local runs indoors.

When it comes to sustainability, the effort is visible. Slippers are wrapped in biodegradable packaging, bathrooms are free of mini plastic toiletries, and the straw in every cocktail is metal. The approach complements the elemental nature of mountain life and the activities available to (adult) guests. Breathwork and ice-water immersion sessions begin at 7am on the grounds each morning, and yoga classes can be booked on request.

The rooftop restaurant is open to external visitors and offers sweeping 360-degree mountain views, as well as an outdoor terrace furnished with cosy blankets. Cocktails are creative and reflect the hotel’s concept: bringing a touch of modern hotel luxury to the slopes and making it accessible, approachable and thoroughly fun.

Nearest ski resort: Arosa Lenzerheide

Price: rooms from around €146 per night

HUUS Gstaad Hotel, Switzerland

From the balcony here you can watch private jets descending onto the runway below, but there is a trick: to embrace the contours and connect with the surroundings, you should skip the flight and arrive by train, climbing up in a Grand Budapest Hotel-style carriage from Montreux. This hotel recently settled above Gstaad’s neighbouring village of Saanen, among wooden chalets that have been there since the Matterhorn was a little boy. The interiors are another story: the open-plan space shimmers in peacock purples and greens, wine-gum coloured lights and tartan patterns set against slate and dark wood.

There are plenty of sofas and armchairs to lounge in, a gin-forward cocktail menu always to hand as the weekend DJ warms up, while the restaurant creatively riffs on pumpkin, game, chestnuts and mushrooms, and in winter a fondue hut makes for a cosy pit stop. Everything is as snug as a fur-lined ski boot, and you could gaze at cloud-wrapped mountain views, from the sauna, the pool, the bedroom or the bar terrace, until the cows come home. But resident man Thomas Rüegger has other ideas: most activities are free, and the range is fantastically generous, from snowshoeing to snowboarding and ski lessons for children. For kids under ten, free lift passes, free equipment rental and free ski school. You can even test the latest freeride or touring gear, perhaps by tackling the steep, icy Tiger Run slopes on Wassengrat.

Nearest ski resort: Gstaad
Price: rooms from around €234 per night

Miramonti Boutique hotel, Merano, Italy

An Alpine spa retreat with incredible valley views, this mountain hideaway is one of the most beautiful hotels in Italy. Set in the Dolomites overlooking Merano, it feels more clean Scandinavian than traditional mountain lodge. The whole place revolves around the view. The glass-walled Panorama restaurant lives up to its name, bedrooms have tall windows, and the outdoor pool stretches out over the mountainside. It is booked year-round, but in winter keen skiers come for the nearby Meran 2000 slopes, followed by time in the Finnish sauna or the spa.
Rooms are warm and soft, with plenty of pine, oak and moody Nordic colours. There are three restaurants: Klassik for a foraged breakfast, Panorama for clever takes on Austrian and Italian classics, and the wood-clad Stube for hearty mountain specialities.

Nearest ski resort: Meran 2000

Price: rooms from around €585 per night

Riders Hotel, Laax, Switzerland

Philipp Ruggli

Anyone who thinks skiing in Switzerland is just rösti, cuckoo clocks and red-cheeked kings clearly has not been to Laax. This global centre of freestyle skiing and snowboarding offers a far more alternative perspective, and after a complete redesign in 2017, the 57-room Riders Hotel is aimed squarely at an adrenaline-seeking crowd. Rooms are compact but cool, with walk-in rainfall showers, black metalwork and plywood beds set against bare bulbs and polished concrete floors. Only one has a bathtub (The Studio), but all have floor-to-ceiling windows, many looking out over the lake from which the carbon-neutral hotel draws its heat.

The ground-floor bar hosts free concerts on Friday nights, and the 600-capacity basement club kicks off at the weekend, but rest assured, you cannot hear it upstairs. You will not find meat at the buffet. But nobody minds, because the selection ranges from vegan yoghurt and baba ghanoush to various kinds of hummus, homemade jams and plenty more. Riders Restaurant is also entirely vegetarian-vegan for dinner. Inventive dishes and a weekly changing menu guarantee an enjoyable visit.

Nearest ski resort: Laax

Price: rooms from around €150 per night

Valsana, Arosa, Switzerland

Those who have been to Arosa, a luxury destination at the top end of the Schanfigg valley that is more about skiing than socialising, used to travel there for the super-elegant Tschuggen Grand Hotel, with its private ski lift and glass spa protruding from the mountainside. Now a new sister hotel is injecting fresh energy into the local scene. The Alps have long cried out for less stiff, more affordable hotels, and the bold, playful Valsana is part of that new wave. There is no dining room drowned in white tablecloths or rooms stuffed with Heidi kitsch. Instead, the Twist restaurant serves a healthy menu: perhaps a pink salad for lunch (radicchio, red cabbage, pomegranate, a poached egg and strawberries), or a vegan, gluten-free coconut and chocolate mousse after dinner.

Its 40 rooms swap reindeer motifs for Aztec patterns on blankets, antlers for botanical prints and sheepskins for inviting industrial aviator egg chairs, while hammocks on the balconies are a nice touch too. Beyond the refreshed aesthetic, the place has serious eco credentials: it is the first hotel in Switzerland with an ice battery, meaning no oil or gas is used, and the mattresses are made from coconut fibre. The nearest lift is only a few minutes away, and thanks to the linking of the Arosa Lenzerheide ski areas a few years ago, it gives you access to more than 225 kilometres of pistes. There is also snowshoeing and ice golf on the lake and, back at the hotel, yoga classes, weekly film nights and a small spa with treatment rooms named after Swiss ski champions.

Nearest ski resort: Bergstation Carmenna

Price: rooms from around €215 per night

Maison Cimes, Les Orres, France

After 20 years in Paris, Sandrine, a lawyer, and Xavier Lecharny, who worked in advertising before training as a chef, arrived in the Hautes-Alpes in 2007 to create their first B&B, La Maison du Guil, serving an evening tasting menu in the Queyras valley. In 2012 they moved to Nantes, where they launched the creatively health-minded restaurant César & Rosalie. But they were looking for a reason to return to the mountains. This ancient mountain inn turned Scandinavian guesthouse, which they opened last summer, is exactly that. Here, the table d’hôte restaurant, run five evenings a week, is as appealing as the five bedrooms, crisp whites with shades of grey and navy softened by Tolix chairs draped in sheepskin or pieces of warm mid-century furniture, and the all-abilities Les Orres ski area, winding through an enormous larch forest, five minutes by car or 10 minutes on the free bus.

The menu is local, with a light, vegetarian-leaning touch not usually found in the mountains, paired with a fully organic wine list. Xavier runs cooking classes on some Saturday afternoons. The next one, at the end of January, will feature four courses including an endive, mushroom and liquorice-leaf salad and pho made with duck and winter vegetables.

Nearest ski resort: Les Orres

Price: rooms from around €170 per night

Le Cerf, Amoureux, Cordon-Combloux, France

From the outside it is an ultra-traditional Alpine chalet, set on the “balcony of Mont Blanc” between the villages of Cordon and Combloux, 10 minutes from famously beautiful Megève. But it was redesigned and reopened last winter according to the vision of Parisian Lisa Konckier-Abrat. She removed the red-and-white gingham clichés; instead, there is now a wabi-sabi spirit to the interiors, a raw, soothing elegance: traditional pine walls and ceilings have been sanded back to a pale patina, naturally dyed linen covers sofas and beds, and storytelling touches, such as a worn sled repurposed as a coffee table or well-loved old Savoyard chests of drawers and wardrobes, root it firmly in its setting.

With just 11 bedrooms, some with incredible Mont Blanc views from their balconies, there is a distinct at-home feel, helped along by freshly made snacks by the fire (biscuit de Savoie or brioche) and a bar with an excellent whisky selection for nightcaps. Everything is small but perfectly formed and thoughtfully done: the compact restaurant menu offers irresistible classics, fondue, raclette, tartiflette, while the small spa offers massages and yoga.

Nearest ski resort: Cordon-Combloux and Megève

Price: chalet rental from around €4,200 per night

Four Seasons Hôtel Megève, France

This grand Four Seasons property opened in the top French resort of Megève in its current form at the end of 2017, just before the pandemic shortened one ski season in Europe and cancelled another altogether. It reopened in 2021, with all the warmth of old mountain chalets and a glamour that can rival nearby St Moritz. Rooms have fireplaces for unwinding after a day on the slopes and quirky art, while downstairs there is a 900-square-metre spa and an indoor-outdoor pool.

There is ski-in ski-out access so guests can head straight out from the hotel, and a fleet of Four Seasons vehicles to drive you around. The slopes are gentle and known as some of the sunniest in France. And the town is beautiful, cobbled and car-free, with horse-drawn carriages a common sight.

Nearest ski resort: Megève

Price: rooms from around €737 per night

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