Pension Brönimann

My wife and I ended up in the beautiful Austrian town of Ossiach am See more by happenstance than by design -- the place we had planned to stay at in Lake Bled, Slovenia, was unavailable for three days, so we decided to go across the border to Austria's Carinthia region and see the Lake Ossiach region instead. It turned out to be a very good decision. The Hotel Bronimann is more a standard Austrian guesthouse than a hotel, with just 10 rooms in a three story building. It was very comfortable, immaculately clean, and reasonably priced. With a slight discount for a three-night stay, we paid 63 Euros a night for a two-room suite on one of the upper floors. Breakfast, which was included in the price and served each morning in a large ground floor room, was an ample continental-style breakfast that held us until lunchtime. The hotel has a nice sunny outdoor terrace overlooking the lake that is a perfect place to relax. The Bronimann family (apparently an older couple and their adult son) who run this gusthouse were friendly if slighty reserved, and while I communicated with them in German, their E-mail correspondence with me was in excellent English. The Hotel Bronimann is located on the inland side of the road that follows Lake Ossiach. A park for camping trailers was located down by the lake shore opposite the hotel, but it seemed a quiet and pretty self-contained operation. From the hotel we could easily walk along sidewalks the kilometer or so east into the town of Ossiach for dinner or for sightseeing, enjoying along the way a beautiful view of the lake and the mountains on the opposite shore. We ate twice at the Gasthof zur Post restaurant in town, and were quite pleased with the excellent, traditional Austrian food it served. While in Ossiach, we suggest including the church and monastery in town, the lake cruise, and slightly farther afield, the amazing castle of Hochosterwitz in any sightseeing plans. If you plan to spend any time in the Lake Ossiach region, we would recommend the Hotel Bronimann as a very solid lodging choice that provides excellent value and a simple but high degree of comfort.