The Forsthofgut Hotel And Spa

Starting as a few rooms in a farm house. the Forsthofgut grew into an award winning five star hotel. Lying in a valley between the craggy peaks of the Leoganger “Rocky Mountains” and the gentle hills of the Asitz mountain, the “Forest House”, is a fifth generation family run hotel.

The welcoming Naturhotel Forsthofgut resort is located an hour and a half from Salzburg, in the small town of Leogang in the Austrian region of Salzburgerland. You park on the circular drive and walk along a pretty stone path lined with flowers and water features with floating silver balls that leads to the main hotel entrance. It is flanked on either side by traditional alpine chalet style buildings, complete with geranium filled window boxes.

Once you enter the hotel, you are surrounded by a modern reception area and large lobby lounge. We were welcomed with a glass of champagne, our car was parked and our luggage stored while our room was made ready.

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I would call the stylish interior design, “contemporary alpine“, with a combination of traditional and modern decor. The interior is a mix of polished concrete, natural woods, stone and glass. The large lobby is furnished with soft leathers, nubby grey and blue fabrics, accented with bright colored velvets, wall mounted antlers, metal sculptures, and lots of candles, fresh flowers and plants.

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The main feature in the lobby lounge is the Botanist bar, designed like a 20th century apothecary with vintage looking lights and an old pharmacy scale. The friendly bartender Tom and his team create wonderful and imaginative cocktails made using house made syrups, bitters and infusions.

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Opening out from the lobby lounge, there is an outdoor bar, dining and large relaxation area with sun loungers and umbrellas. An organic, natural spring water bathing lake is the centerpiece of the beautiful gardens. The lake surrounds the new “Seehaus“, a wooden lake house that is an extension of the waldSPA with a Japanese Onsen Pool, infinity pool, and is lined with relaxation islands and sun loungers. There is also a Japanese restaurant along with three new large garden loft suites with fireplaces and their own private saunas.

The Forsthofgut has 102 rooms and suites with lots of options when it comes to deciding what room you would like to reserve. We choose a Nature Suite Lebensquell that was done in a contemporary style using light woods, dark blue upholstered furniture, and a gray woolen rug. The room had a kingsize bed, a sofa chair along with a small table, chair and bench seating. The bathroom had heated stone floors, a large walk in rain shower and a separate toilet.

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Our room was on the first floor and had a nice terrace hidden behind a wall of lovely fir trees. There were two lounge chairs for relaxing and a small table and two chairs, perfect for your morning cup of coffee. What we enjoyed about our room was that it was the closest room to the entrance of the adults only waldSPA. The multilevel, award winning spa had a wide variety of saunas, steam room and lovely relaxation areas. There is also a rooftop pool and large whirlpool that had wonderful views of the mountains, forests, meadows and gardens. The wellness area also had several snack bars with fruit or herb infused water, nuts, dried fruits and fresh fruits.

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The all inclusive room rate includes a buffet for breakfast that is designed like a market with products from their own bakery, dairy and butcher, along with a coffee bar and a juice bar as well as a vegan corner. This is also where afternoon snacks were served.

In the evening, the hotel serves a daily changing gourmet menu based on three cuisine lines, Alpine, Regional with local food and products sourced no more than 50 km from the hotel, and Vegan. Every course could be chosen from the three different menus which starts with a salad buffet and ends with a nice cheese assortment.

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In addition to the main house restaurant, there are three other à la carte restaurants. There is a fine dining restaurant called “echt. gut essen“, a traditional Austrian restaurant called “1617” and a Japanese restaurant called “Mizumi“.

One thing that makes the Forsthofgut different from other wellness hotels we have stayed at is that it is a family friendly hotel where children are made to feel as special as their parents. The hotel provides free childcare with trained caregivers for children 2 years old and up, 7 days a week. They can have lunch as part of the childcare along with dinner at Rocky’s Club. There is also a children’s buffet in the evening and separate family dining rooms.

The Forsthofgut also has is a separate waldSPA Family & Kids with an indoor pool, a children’s water world with baby, toddler and separate children’s pools with three water slides. Rocky’s pine sauna is for families and there is a large textile sauna area for guests age 10 and up. In addition, there is a workshop with a painter’s studio, play areas and various kids programs. There is also a teens lounge that has table football, table tennis and air hockey and a relax area with beanbags and regular movie nights.

Outdoors, there is the miniGUT where rabbits, ponies, pigs, sheep and goats live on the hotel’s children’s farm. A game enclosure, where Rocky the deer and his friends live, is right next to the farm.

What have I left out, oh yes, there is another feature for the whole family to enjoy, a horse stable with an indoor and outdoor riding arena. Oh to be a kid again…the children we saw all seemed like they were having a great time.

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Surrounded by mountains, forest and meadows, we found the Forsthofgut to be a delightful hotel that we hope to return to in the future. As an aside, when I first came upon an article about this wonderful wellness hotel, it had only one photo of a very modern, minimalist looking building that wasn’t what I pictured an alpine hotel should look like. However, the photo turned out not to be the hotel but instead, it was the waldSPA, built to blend in with the surrounding forest. In fact, what I perceived at the time to being a rather ugly duckling, turned out to actually be a beautiful swan and is one of Europe’s best Spa & Wellness hotels.