Adler Spa Resort Dolomiti

The Adler really is truly remarkable hotel. It’s more like a luxury cruise liner than regular hotel. You could realistically book a week here and never have to leave the hotel – such is the breadth of activities on offer. Of course that would be a great mistake as Ortisei is one of the prettiest small towns in the region. A short walk and a mountain gondola ride away, is the spectacular panorama of the UNESCO World Natural Heritage area – Alpe di Siusi. We’ve seen this awesome (literally) panorama in both winter and summer and it still manages to take our breath away. The hotel manages to tastefully integrate Tyrolean charm, with Italian style. The public areas are a delight on the eye and very comfortable indeed. Our room (204) was immaculate. I genuinely could not fault one single aspect; it was all so well designed and easy to use. It goes without saying that all the things you would expect from a room in a hotel of this calibre (such as toiletries) were included. Meals were generally excellent with one notable exception which I will come to later. Buffet choices (simply salads or desserts) were expansive. When there was a special buffet evening, (such as the fish and the local speciality evenings) the choices were astonishing. The phrase “spoiled for choice” could have been written to describe these evenings. This especially applied to the range of bread products at breakfast. We have never (and I do mean never) seen such an array of different types of fresh bread. In November of last year, we stayed at a five star establishment in Florence and I was mightily impressed. I have to tell you that it didn’t come close to what is on offer at the Adler. The same goes for every aspect of the food at the Adler – choice and quality are the bywords. Not to mention the excellent (and very reasonably priced) wine list. Considering the amount of covers this hotel deals with (it’s not exactly a small hotel) the kitchen performed spectacularly well. We did not have a single disappointing meal…apart from our first. On our first night, the staff dealing with our part of the dining room (everyone was absolutely first class) advised us to check out the fish buffet before considering our later options. This was wise advice, as the buffet was simply breath-taking. I have never seen so much seafood in one place – and top quality stuff at that. So I didn’t pay much attention to what was to follow and ordered the vegetarian Lasagne with crispy Cavolo Nero. I’m sorry to say this was the worst pasta dish I have ever eaten. The sheets of fresh pasta had collapsed to form a thick, two centimetre block of stodge, topped with some crispy cabbage – genuinely awful. That lasagne – thankfully – was not typical. For the rest of the week we dined like royalty, with a special mention to the dessert team, who delivered visually amusing, utterly delicious endings to all of our meals. The skills of the dessert team were also on display at the afternoon dessert buffet. Every da

High quality in everything