It’s 5pm on a Monday and I’m sitting in a panoramic rooftop sauna. Outside the huge glass windows, forest-plastered peaks stretch away into the clouded distance. Inside, accordion-laced, German-language reggaeton blasts from a Bluetooth speaker. The warm, dry air smells of lemon balm, and a man in red harem pants is whirling a towel around his head, sending hot gusts rushing over a handful of spellbound kids and their smiling parents. As lightning flashes over a far-off mountain, I find myself thinking: you’d never get this at Center Parcs.
It’s not easy in the UK to find a place that’s truly built for kids – even letting them join in with hallowed sauna rituals like the Aufguss. But this is par for the course in the South Tyrol: a peculiar corner of northern Italy that’s home to breathtaking hilltops, a fascinating cultural mash-up and some of the world’s greatest family hotels.
