Is there any better show in nature than the magnetic majesty of mountains? For almost every culture and religion, those peaks, shaped by tectonic plates colliding and volcanoes exploding, symbolize transformation and the divine.
Historical spa towns in the Alps that were popular in the 19th and early 20th centuries as places to recover from illness are seeing renewed interest. Bad Gastein in Austria has seen a hotel boom, from 1960s-style The Cōmodo to the Straubinger Grand Hotel.
The Grand Hotel Belvedere, a 1912 art-nouveau complex in the Swiss Bernese Highlands, reopened this past fall after a two-year renovation. Featuring 90 rooms and suites, it overlooks the picturesque Lauterbrunnen Valley. Guests are shuttled in on a cog railway that winds through the mountains to the car-free village of Wengen, where the Belvedere is situated.
In the nearby village of Adelboden, The Brecon, a 22-room luxury inn and spa, recently opened in a traditional chalet-style building from the 1940s. Outfitted by the Amsterdam-based interior-design studio Nicemakers with a stylish mix of vintage and contemporary furniture and objects, it’s just as inviting in the summer as it is during ski season.
And if you're planning for summer, try the wild north of Norway, where the sun doesn’t set for weeks at a time in the warmer months. Guests at the new Wood Hotel Bodø, built near the summit of Mount Rønvik, can hike a network of trails even at midnight. For those who would rather take in their surroundings with a drink in hand, the 177-room lodge is topped by a terrace with a bar and heated pool.
For a more adventurous mountain experience in a landscape that could double as the surface of the moon, Highland Base Kerlingarfjöll in Iceland, set in the volcanic mountain range of the same name, contains lava formations that locals say are giants who were turned to stone. The eco-property is a complex of buildings that includes private lodges and A-frame huts as well as the newest addition, a modern angular pine building with 28 rooms and suites with window seats. The Highland Baths, a trio of natural pools fed by thermal springs, opened to the public this past summer.
Scattered along the Tea Horse Road, an ancient trade route in Southwest China that spans rivers and dramatic mountain passes, is an evolving collection of small retreats and hotels from the hospitality company Lux*. Guests are meant to journey from one to another, resting up in the likes of an 18-room boutique hotel in the historic seventh-century center of Shangri-La or a 30-room Tibetan-style lodge in Benzilan, a village on the banks of the Yangtze River, deep in the Himalayas.
This article was originally featured in the August 2024 Issue of Harper’s Bazaar
