Beyond the Dolomites: Visit Merano

In Merano, German and Italian culture sit comfortably side by side. Along with 300 days of sunshine a year, this Belle Époque spa town (yes, there is a huge terme) has history dating back to when Empress Elisabeth (“Sissi”) wintered here. You can walk the Tappeiner Promenade in the morning (we did this with two strollers!), wander the botanical wonder of the Trauttmansdorff Castle gardens by afternoon, and check out the Merano 2000 summit in the evening—all within an hour’s drive from a Dolomites cable car if you want your dose of vertigo. Few places in the Alps let you have all of this.

And nowhere is that duality better expressed than in Merano’s hotels, which range from castle hideaways in the hills to design-forward wellness retreats to elegant properties right in the historic center. Here are a few worth knowing.

Views of Merano from above via the Merano 2000 cable car

Around every corner, Merano feels like a fairytale

Castel Fragsburg: The storybook hilltop retreat

Perched above Merano in a 17th-century hunting lodge, Castel Fragsburg has been privately run by the Ortner family since 1955, and it shows in every detail (including a two-Michelin-starred restaurant where Stanley Tucci recently dined). This is hospitality as a family art form, not a corporate script. The drive up alone sets the tone: hairpin roads climbing through vineyards, apple farms, and forest until the lodge’s gables come into view, with an antique motorbike and sidecar parked out front as a kind of house mascot. With only around 20 individually decorated suites spread across a five-hectare garden, it’s one of the smallest luxury hotels in the Alps, and that intimacy is the whole point.

Views from Castel Fragsburg

Guests wake up to sweeping views over the Adige Valley, spend afternoons at the heated outdoor pool or working through the Spa Castellum Natura’s sauna and Turkish bath circuit (the spa manager is rightly known as a modern alchemist). They can walk 20 minutes through orchards and vineyards to South Tyrol’s highest waterfall, a 135-meter cascade tumbling out of wild, unspoiled terrain. The hotel’s own dining does with food what the property does with its setting: alpine tradition, reinterpreted with a Mediterranean touch (I literally had the best veal of my life here!). And for guests curious about the estate’s history, the 14th-century castle the lodge was originally built to serve still stands on a neighboring cliff, now reserved for weddings and private events. It’s a hotel for people who want to disappear into a fairytale and emerge relaxed, well fed and with a new sense of beauty. Perfect for romantics, but works for families as well (my daughter hand-picked this property, because she wanted to feel like Elsa—IYKYK).

Castel Fragsburg’s fairytale setting

Hotel Chalet Mirabell: The epitome of Alpine wellness

Twenty minutes above Merano on the sun-drenched Hafling plateau, Chalet Mirabell takes a different approach: sprawling grounds, sleek design, the entire focus on wellness. With interiors from Planteam and Köck & Bachler, and furnished in part with Minotti’s Jacques seating collection, the five-star property spans a generous stretch of meadow and forest overlooking the Merano valley, with 70-ish rooms and suites, plus freestanding mountain villas (some running up to 3,200 square feet with their own private pool, sauna, and designer kitchen, overlooking a field of llamas). The spa is the real draw: 64,500 square feet of it, including the longest heated natural bathing pond in South Tyrol, a Finnish sauna, steam and infrared rooms, and a rooftop sunset pool with whirlpool jets that seems to spill straight into the mountains—and get this: the spa has both family and adult-only sections!

Hotel Chalet Mirabell’s natural pool, used to cool its saunas

A room with a view at Hotel Chalet Mirabell

While this isn’t one of those over-the-top, entirely kid-focused resorts, families are a core client demographic and well looked after with luxury. A dedicated kids’ club and water park, kept separate from the adults-only spa wing, were the highlights of my kids’ summer (my kids had to be dragged out of there kicking and screaming more than once). Hiking, skiing, and mountain biking are all right outside the door; after dropping my kids off in the kids club one morning, my husband and I did a memorable guided mountain bike tour. Run by the hands-on Reiterer family, this resort manages to feel spacious and personal at once, which is no small feat at this scale. The highlights of our time on property ranged from our in-room jacuzzi and sauna (conveniently located next to a brand-new on-site playground), to the private barn dinner with llamas (yes, we dined with a herd of llamas!)

My son meeting the llamas, just before our private dinner with them

Hotel Mignon: Elegance in the heart of town

For travelers who want to be in Merano rather than above it, Hotel Mignon is the pick. Set within its own 107,000-square-foot private park of palms and century-old cedars, just a five-minute walk from the historic old town, it’s been owned and run by the Glatt-Amort-Ellmenreich family for nearly four decades, and that continuity gives it a warmth that’s hard to manufacture. The 21,500-square-foot Park Spa is built for daily lingering and includes a lovely rooftop area. The kitchen leans into a Mediterranean-inflected take on South Tyrolean tradition. Rooms range from garden-view doubles to penthouse suites with private rooftop terraces and whirlpools, and the location does a lot of the work: Trauttmansdorff Castle’s gardens, the Merano thermal baths, and the old town’s cafés, boutiques, and promenades are all an easy walk away. For me, the main takeaway was the generosity and passion of the family who runs it; it truly transcends generations.

Worth noting: This family also owns a four-star sister property: Hotel Adria. It’s Merano’s oldest hotel, the very first building in the city constructed specifically to be one, originally opened as the Hotel Austria. Staying at Adria means sleeping inside a piece of the town’s hospitality history itself. My favorite feature was the original glass elevator, which transports you not only between floors, but also through time.

Meeting goats on a morning mountain stroll

Whether guests are chasing castle views, spa afternoons, or old-town charm, Merano rewards a slower, more layered kind of travel than the Dolomites' big-ticket peaks. That’s exactly why it deserves more attention than it gets. We spent a full week in this town, transiting between the three aforementioned properties. While they were all within 20 to 30 minutes of each other, they could have been worlds away. This type of trip gave me a deep understanding of the multifaceted experiences Merano offers within a single town’s limits. It was truly magical.

Other noteworthy properties to consider: Villa Eden (an adults-only retreat with exceptional spa and a Leading Hotel of the World) and Miramonti Boutique Hotel, set above town, not far from Hotel Chalet Mirabell, and featuring one of the most Instagram-friendly pools in Italy.

For more inspiration and insider recommendations, visit our Italy page.