Why go here? There are few spots in the Dolomites that offer a theatrical moment quite like Forestis. It is wildly luxurious, yes, but without the slightest hint of flashiness. The setting is, truly, stunning.
On my first morning at the luxurious, eco-friendly Alpine resort, the mountain directly opposite seemed to rise like stage scenery, its peaks glittering with snow. What’s the vibe? Overseen by local architect Armin Sader, the historic building at Forestis’s centre – originally a tuberculosis sanatorium built by the Austrian royals just before World War I – has been thoughtfully extended with a modern wing housing an expansive dining room, as well as three elegant pillar-like towers of glass and steel (designed to echo the verticality of the surrounding woodland) that house the bulk of the resort’s suites and penthouses. In place of the baubled kitsch of most Alpine lodges, the design language of Forestis is one grounded in simplicity, balance, and an overwhelming emphasis on local materials.
The history? The meticulous vision for the project comes courtesy of the couple behind it, Stefan Hinteregger and Teresa Unterthiner. Back in the early 2000s, Hinteregger’s hotelier father peered through wild hedges on a hike nearby and spotted the dormant property at its centre, eventually converting it into the hotel that was formerly on the site. After the project was passed on to Hinteregger Jr, he and Unterthiner were able to fully realise their distinctive take on a Tyrolean hideaway: one anchored in the property’s four elements of water, air, sun, and climate.
The pandemic delayed Forestis’s original launch in early 2020, but its breathtaking setting, impeccable service, and world-class spa have quickly made it a word-of-mouth hit among a more discreet kind of luxury traveler. What should you try? The restorative effect of this place is inextricably tied up in the environment surrounding it. After all, it was the Alpine air that first lured those Austrian royals here almost a century ago.
Where a five-star concierge might typically offer you tips for restaurants or get you a private appointment at a local store, here, the friendly staff offers you a map of local trails – although it turns out that most of the nearby routes come with colour-coded signposts that point intrepid hikers along paths of varying distance, meaning it’s difficult to get lost. Inside, within the state-of-the-art spa complex – spread across more than 2,000 square meters and two floors – you’ll find a kind of sleek Nordic Disneyland for rest and recuperation. There are all your standard spa mod cons, of course, but also briny steam baths, hot rooms scented with local herbs, and saunas set at a perfectly calibrated temperature.
As is customary in this corner of Europe, inside the cabins, nudity is expected, but there is a sauna and steam room by the pool where the less brave can keep their swimwear on. And for those feeling especially plucky, there’s an outdoor Finnish sauna with a giant tub for cold plunging afterwards, refilled by a wood tube plugged straight into the side of the mountain to release its glacial waters. It’s bracing but worth it for that endorphin rush.
The hotel’s unfussy approach to wellness stems from its illustrious history as a place for recovery – the more adventurously inclined can even try out a Wyda session, a millennia-old energetic stretching practice nicknamed the “yoga of the Celts” – but within the spa, the emphasis is firmly on healing methodologies absorbed from the resort’s natural surroundings. There are body scrubs performed with formulations made from local mountain pine, massages that include pressure techniques using sticks of spruce and larch, and even rituals that make the most of the carefully calibrated acoustics of each treatment room. If you don’t emerge feeling at one with the forest around you after all that, then it isn’t for the spa staff’s lack of trying.
How environmentally friendly is it? Though Forestis wears its sustainable credentials lightly, combing through a list of the various measures taken by the property – from its CO 2 -neutral construction to its fully renewable energy supply to the zero-waste kitchens that rely on reusable food boxes to collect produce from local farmers – makes for genuinely impressive reading. The spa is open to hotel guests. Booking details for Forestis Dolomites Address: Palmschoß 22, 39042 Bressanone BZ, Italy Read more from Vogue’s Global Spa Guide .
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