Seiser Alm Urthaler

We’re just finishing a great week here and are happy to recommend Hotel Urthaler. Quick summary: it’s a comfortable and relaxed hotel with lovely staff, superb half board meals, and a calming swimming pool and spa, and is well located for superb winter walking and skiing. But it isn’t truly ski-in ski-out; you have to walk carefully down a sometimes icy driveway and about 100m up a small access road to reach the nearest piste. The atmosphere in the hotel is relaxed, even laidback; for instance the dinner menu kindly points out that the dress code in the dining room is casual and they’d prefer you not to use your phones. The staff - particularly in the cosy restaurant and stylish bar - are friendly, multilingual, and highly professional. Our room and bathroom are spacious and comfortable with a mountain view and with everything we need including a kettle, fridge, and daily supplies of tea, instant coffee, and mineral water. We chose half board and the food has been excellent. The breakfast buffet and the nightly salad buffet both have a generous and inviting range of options. We eat fish but not meat, and we’ve been really pleased by the choices every night from the two half board menus; one with meat and fish, one solely vegetarian, and with the ability to pick your dishes from both. A typical dinner for us has comprised five courses: salad, soup, pasta, fish, and dessert - all of smallish size (but not the tiny Nouvelle Cuisine type of portion with more garnish than food), superb quality, and enough creativity in the use of ingredients and flavourings to make you feel “ooh; that’s a slightly new combination but it really works”. The fish and veg have been perfectly cooked every time, the handmade pasta gorgeous, and the desserts truly excellent. On two of our nights here there’s been a special menu: one night the desserts were provided as a buffet, and yesterday it was the Tyrolean buffet. That was mostly focused on meat eaters, but there was a good vegetarian soup and traditional dumplings of spinach and cheese, plus plenty of vegetables, so we didn’t go hungry. One thing that has seemed a bit strange to us: if you want cheese at the end of your meal you have to pay extra for it. Having said that, the salad buffet includes some nice cheeses and chutneys, so just have them at the start of the meal rather than the end. The wine list is really good, with a particuarly lovely selection of excellent local wines and helpful advice from the waiters. If you buy a bottle they are happy to recork it and keep it for you to finish the next night; this has worked perfectly for us two. So; on to the winter sports. We’ve been interested to see that the hotel does not focus specifically on skiers; it’s as much for walkers and people simply wanting a calm retreat among the stunning scenery and nature of this beautiful mountain plateau. The walking trails are well marked, varied and extensive, and are cleared enough of snow so that you can walk in normal hiking boots: there’s no need for snowshoes. We will almost certainly come back for some serious hiking one spring or autumn. The hotel’s ski room is in the basement. We’ve been surprised that this has no security other than a camera; surely anyone could walk in from the street and take your boots and skis. Most other hotels we’ve used for skiing have required a code or keycard to access the ski room and/or have provided secure ski lockers for each guestroom. There would be plenty of space for such lockers in this room: perhaps this is something for the hotel owners to consider. Access to the pistes and lifts is OK, but it’s not really a ski-in ski-out hotel. From the ski room you need to take the lift up to the ground floor and then walk down the quite steep driveway onto a small road. The road takes you up to a blue piste, the ski school, the children’s area, and the main cable car lift that comes up from Suisi in the valley below - all 100-250m away. In our first few days here, despite being cleared of snow and gritted each morning, the driveway was still slippery for anyone in ski boots, requiring a lot of care; indeed, we saw several skiers slipping and one person fall. We told the reception staff we were finding it difficult and, since yesterday, a strip of fresh snow has been kept at one side of the driveway, which is much easier to walk on (thanks!). It would be even better if the hotel added a rubber mat or some other surface that’s safe to use in ski boots, perhaps with a handrail. Forgive the details here, but we weren’t sure exactly how to get to and from the pistes from the hotel - it really isn’t obvious! So I hope others will find this helpful… …The nearest piste is a short blue run (#76 I think) down to the Panorama chairlift. You join it from the access road by walking about 50m down to the cross country piste and then skiing across that through a small gap in a blue fence. Continue along the bottom of the nursery slope, past the signs where the ski school groups meet, to reach the piste. To get back at the end of your day’s skiing take either the ski school’s Eurotel draglift #76 or the Euro chairlift #77. From the top of the chairlift ski about a third of the way down the piste, turn right towards the cable car station, and ski past the cafe towards the ski school area. Look out for a big balloon and a wooden hut; then take the very short run down from that hut to get back to where you started. Go carefully! You might have to avoid a few children on sledges, and don’t use the nice flat piste that curves around the ski school area; it’s only for crosscountry skiers.