Hotel Hubertus hotel - South Tyrol, Italy

The Gasser family has been running the Hubertus since 1960 and, incredibly, it’s renovated every year since. The most recent touch-up, though, is probably its most ambitious, if not, spectacular.

Twenty-four new rooms have been added, bringing the total keys to 60. The additions by South Tyrolean practice Network of Architecture are nicely done, the old and new wings enrobed in a curvaceous façade of perforated metal balustrades and larch trunks. Internally, the hard-wearing wood appears as room dividers and as screens against sun, rain and snow.

There are, incredibly for a hotel of this size, six indoor and outdoor pools though, admittedly, some of them are whirlpools and plunge pools. The most spectacular is the new 25-metre outdoor lap pool that, handily, demarcates the old and new wings. Clad in stone with a glazed window cut through the bottom at the far end, the slender pool juts out of the building and hangs vertiginously over a 12m drop.

If that’s too much of a thrill, there’s an almost bewildering selection of spa facilities including an infrared sauna, a herbal sauna, and a grotto steam bath.

Meanwhile, various members of the Gasser family man the kitchen, turning out homey South Tyrolean classics like speck dumplings and apple strudel with vanilla cream – a hearty repast best savoured with a window table overlooking the valley and the distant Dolomites.