Holiday tips: Cooling off at its best: The most beautiful hotel pools from the Allgäu to South Tyrol
What a cool pool: For many holidaymakers, an impressive swimming pool is the most important booking criterion. We present six dream pools with breathtaking views in the Allgäu, Austria and Switzerland.
Swimming pool, outdoor pool, whirlpool, wellness pool: there are many names for pools, but none has caused as much fascination in recent years as the invention of the infinity pool – in English: infinity pool.
This is usually on the hotel roof or in another exposed place and is lowered at one end so that it looks as if the water is merging with the horizon. So uninterrupted that it offers the ultimate view of the surrounding area.
The seemingly endless pool is just an illusion. But swimming in the calm waters of an infinity pool just feels special. We have unearthed six hotel pools in Germany, Austria and South Tyrol that are among the most ingenious in their category.
1. Resort Bergkristall, Oberstaufen in the Allgäu
The conditions for an amazing pool couldn’t be more ideal: The 4-star resort is located at 850 meters on a slope in Willis on the outskirts of Oberstaufen with an unobstructed view of the Allgäu, Austrian and Swiss Alps. You can swim against this magnificent panorama over a distance of 20 meters – in the heated infinity pool. Or just slide into the water and settle down on one of the massage bubble loungers and let the beauty of creation work its magic on you.
Enjoyment and relaxation at the highest level is also the motto that the Lingg family lives with dedication and passion. Her talent for special things is also evident in the panorama sauna, which is part of the 2000 square meter wellness area. There, the guests are amazed when the deer “Hansi” struts past from the hotel’s own deer enclosure.
- Prices: One night in a double room from 179 euros per person
2. The StempWellnessresort in Büchlberg in the Bavarian Forest
What a water landscape: a 25 meter long infinity pool is located in a natural organic swimming pond surrounded by plants. The concept of wellness is redefined in the family-run 4-star hotel around 20 minutes by car from Passau. Seven different saunas, six relaxation rooms with different themes such as hay or floating and three pools – surrounded by the deep green of the Bavarian Forest.
In the infinity pool with its exceptional location, massage areas, bubble loungers and sun loungers invite you to relax. If you like swimming, you can relax and swim laps here with the uplifting feeling of floating in the middle of nature. To be more precise: glide into the largest contiguous forest protection area in Central Europe and pump your lungs full of clear, fresh air.
- Prices: Three nights in a double room with breakfast from 600 euros per person
3. Hotel Sepp, Maria Alm am Hochkonig
This is great in the truest sense of the word: on the rooftop of the 4-star hotel not only a vintage Airstream caravan from the USA that has been converted into a hot-air sauna shines, but also the warm water of a spacious infinity pool. This is twelve meters long and has glass walls. The view of the rocks of the Steinernes Meer with their sharp-edged peaks fits perfectly with the concept of the boutique and lifestyle hotel named after the owner Josef “Sepp” Schwaiger – extravagant.
Or how else should you describe a floating breakfast? Those who choose this option will be served a floating tray with egg dishes, waffles, fresh fruit and muesli, sausage, cheese, sweet delicacies, coffee, juices and champagne. You can give yourself all the time in the world for brunch, because the water temperature is 32 degrees all year round. Peace and romance are guaranteed in the “Sepp”, because as an adult-only hotel it is aimed at guests over 21 years of age.
- Prices: Two nights in a double room with breakfast from 254 euros per person
4. Puradies Nature Resort, Leogang in Salzburger Land
For many years, the Magreiter family has been showing how well trend setting and tradition go together on their huge area between meadows, pastures and forests at an altitude of 900 meters. The people of Leogang have been farming here since 1845, protecting nature and resources, since 2007 one of the first chalet villages in Austria and now also a design hotel made of wood.
Since everything here revolves around the experience of nature, there is no pool, but an organic natural bathing pond. This is in front of the free-standing wooden “bath house” with its four panorama saunas and is surrounded by a park-like sunbathing area. Small wooden walkways and platforms make it easy to get into the water and offer cool berths above the organic pond.
Once you have submerged yourself in the water, which is up to three meters deep, you will not leave it again so quickly, because the 360-degree view of the surrounding mountains is addictive. Here the Leoganger Steinberge, there the Pinzgauer mountains and on the other side the view of the Saalbach-Hinterglemm-Fieberbrunn-Leogang area, which starts directly from the front door.
- Prices: Three nights in a double room with breakfast from 450 euros per person
5. Mountain Resort Feuerberg, Am Gerlitzen in Carinthia
Foresight, well-being, wow moments and a kingdom of water: The 4-star Hotel “Feuerberg” is located at an altitude of 1769 meters and surprises in every respect. Superlatives dominate from the outside, such as the natural lake embedded in terraced gardens, the 40-metre water slide for children, eleven pools and the “My Being” wellness center, which is equipped with fine natural materials, and its energetically holistic applications.
The simplicity reigns inside, which the Berger couple, who have traveled a long way, and their staff exude. After all, Erwin Berger describes his bathing world on the mountain with 60 rooms and suites as well as 14 chalets as “a modest house that works from heart to heart”.
Speaking of the heart: the 25 meter long infinity pool, in which you can swim towards the Carinthian lakes, the Karawanken and the Julian Alps, gets a lot of hearts on every Instagram post. Even if it’s foggy in the valley below at Lake Ossiacher See, you can float up here in the warm water over the lake Clouds and looks as if over a white sea of cotton wool straight into the sunlit mountains on the horizon. It is understandable that this infinity pool was awarded “Europe’s coolest pool” in 2017.
- Prices: Three nights in a double room with half board from 823 euros per person
6. Quellenhof Luxury Resort, Passeier in South Tyrol
It is modeled on a flower, made entirely of glass and daringly towers into the Meran mountain air at the corner of the rooftop: a unique pool construction hovers on top of the recently renovated Guesthouse F of the “Quellenhof”. With a year-round water temperature of 32 degrees, “adults only” can swim through the ether with a dream view of the Passeier mountains.
The 5-star resort describes itself as a “swimming pool paradise”, which sounds quite appropriate considering a new glass 25-metre infinity sports pool, a brine pool, biological swimming pond and Italy’s first turbo slide with a fully automatic fall start. In April 2022, the “See Lodge” opened, whose luxury suites with a Maldivian touch are grouped in and around a 4,500 square meter lake. A separate waterfront hideaway in the heart of the resort.
- Prices: 3 nights in a double room with half board from 792 euros per person