Best for: all-inclusive, snowy scenes
Winding up through the mountains to San Sonnea, through thick pine forests and chocolate-box alpine villages, is enough to leave your travel woes behind. The hotel couldn’t have a more picturesque spot, its traditional chalet peaks reflecting the jagged mountaintops of the Dolomites surrounding it, light bouncing off the crevices. Everything about all-inclusive San Sonnea is tailored to families but in the most unassuming, and very chic, of ways: wooden step boxes for little ones to reach the check-in desk; cubby-style bedrooms with mini forest-green dino robes; cosy reading nooks with books for all ages; an indoor “aquapark” out of sound and sight of the idyllic natural spring pool; a spa that features a children’s treatment menu; and a restaurant that makes family-style dining a stress-free, even civilised, affair.
In the wood-panelled dining room overlooking the mountains, the restaurant seamlessly combines a children’s buffet with white tablecloth, candlelit fine dining, fusing south Tyrolean and north Italian cuisine a match made in heaven. A walk-in “fruit fridge” is open all day for healthy snacks on demand. But what really stands this hotel apart happens outdoors, where woodland trails uncover babbling creeks, abundant kitchen gardens with mini wheel barrows and watering cans, and grazing Pygmy goats, sheep, alpacas, cattle and pigs. Ducks hang out noisily at the duckhouse and pond while the henhouse has a little step for children to collect eggs. Horses, ponies and the resident donkey trot though the hotel garden between their paddock and the incredibly luxurious new stabling complex, where a huge state-of-the-art indoor menagerie hosts riding lessons. The outdoor playground is an extension of the garden, with giant sandpits, swings, a zipwire, trampoline and sand-floored football pitch blending into its surroundings. Nothing is unsightly here. Ferdi kids’ club makes the most of the hotel’s farm and forestland, with alpaca walks, tractor rides, animal feeding, dam building and pony rides all part of the programme. Beyond the hotel, there’s age-appropriate hiking in the spring, summer and autumn, and skiing (in-and-out of the hotel) in the winter months.