The full name of this delightful spa hotel is “Hotel Quelle Nature Spa Resort” and, once you’re there, you realise quite how much nature plays its part. First of all, there’s the setting. Surrounded by forest, mountains and meadows in the Valley of Casies in the Dolomites, Hotel Quelle is almost literally at the end of the road – a couple of miles on and there’s just a track. So, it’s an unspoiled world here and very likely to stay that way.
Nature played its part here in establishing a hotel at all. “Quelle” in German means “spring” or “source” and the local Badl water, super-clean and full of beneficial minerals was used by Benedikt Steinmair first as a simple water concession and, from 1950, in a small inn with just seven rooms. It grew. It’s still owned by the same family who have over the decades transformed it into a superb 5* spa resort.
In fact, it’s hard to believe on arrival that this place has been around for 75 years such is its contemporary outside appearance (albeit using a stylish wooden exterior) and it just keeps on growing – but mostly in terms of spa and wellness amenities. They are still using their in-house Badl spring but there are now 80 rooms and a lot of space. This is not a place you’re ever going to feel crowded.
My room was in the main building and vast with a generous bedroom, sitting room and a terrace overlooking the mountains and spa garden below, complete with its own hot tub. The restaurant has the same view with floor to ceiling windows and a very fine kitchen.
Breakfast and lunch are buffets but dinner is a five-course affair which may not sound much like a spa except that the food is not only beautifully cooked but fresh, healthy and stylishly presented. Also not very spa-like is the whisky bar – there’s even a cigar room! But the choice is yours here and there’s an abundance of salad, fruit, freshly made juices and rare grain breads alongside perfectly cooked fish and tiny portions of pasta. (There is, too, a very impressive wine list but that’s another story…)
To say the spa is extensive is putting it mildly. But there again that should be “spas”. The most recent is an adults-only rooftop spa with jaw-dropping views down the valley. There’s a rooftop infinity pool (35C) with a cold water plunge pool next to it. There‘s an infrared sauna, as well as a Bio sauna (60C) and a Mountain Fire Hot sauna at a roasting 90C. There are a pair of quiet rooms – one outdoors, one indoors with a fireplace. And there’s plenty of space simply to relax and read a book (no phones allowed here). This is a textile-free area (kit off) as is the Nature Spa, with the exception of the outdoor pool and the terrace.
The Nature Spa has not only an even bigger variety of saunas and steam but a snow sauna (-5C), a salt water grotto and a crystal salt cleansing steam bath. Outside, there’s a biological bathing pond with reeds, constantly fed from the spring, a Kneipp barefoot path, a waterfall and a burbling stream in the forest and a fish pond (this one you can’t get in). Everywhere there are loungers and beds, hammocks and swing seats. There’s even a family spa (and you do wear swimsuits in that one).
There’s a massive gym and a room for classes with a partially glass roof (very pleasant when you get to the end of a yoga class and have time to gaze at the clouds). The range of classes is extensive and there are lots of outdoor activities based in the summer around biking and hiking, while in the winter they turn to snow-shoeing and cross-country skiing.
And then, of course, there is the last of the spas where you find a long menu of treatments. There are several partnerships here with different skin-care providers for facials including Pharmos Natur, Team Dr Joseph and QMS – all renowned for their efficacy and cutting-edge methods and ingredients. When it comes to body treatments, Quelle has a different approach using local herbs and other products as well as age-old techniques. So there’s a St John’s Wort oil pack for aching joints and muscles (good for those hikers). There’s a peeling massage using rosemary and a back massage with honey from the valley.
This all comes together in “Origin of Nature”, a 75-minute treatment that’s full of surprises. When I arrive my therapist, Andrea, invites me into the treatment room to show how she prepares. She’s just been outside to pick the herbs from the garden – mint and rosemary – that will be steamed to produce a fresh essence and then used to create a “herb ball”. In the meantime, she gives me a cup of fresh basil tea. This cleanses and activates the gut as well as the liver and kidneys.
While I’m drinking this, she explains that not only am I having a very unusual kind of massage, I’m also going on a journey. Throughout the treatment, I wear headphones listening to a guided visualisation that takes me on a walk into the mountains through forest and meadow with the sounds of birds and crickets, cow bells and church bells.
We begin with the herb ball which works very hard on my tight back muscles and later on my legs – this is at times a vigorous massage – before a gentler lavender oil scented massage. There are herbal compresses for my back and feet. There’s a draining abdominal massage with herb oil and a face pack made from fresh herbs and honey. There’s a relaxing neck, shoulder and arm massage and then an unusually vigorous lymphatic drainage to encourage all those toxins effectively released by the herbs and massage to leave my system. Relaxing, detoxifying, moisturising, cleansing – it’s a treatment that seemingly does everything alongside its own mesmerising soundtrack.
After that, I’m off to the rooftop to spend an hour or three watching the clouds chasing each other across the sky and the long beautiful valley beneath.
Hotel Quelle is a member of the Belvita group of hotels. For more information, including details of all facilities, treatments and room options, please visit www.hotel-quelle.com. It’s an easy hour and a half drive from Bolzano airport. SkyAlps flies direct to Bolzano from Gatwick.
