Grand Hotel Kempinski High Tatras

The water of Štrbské pleso is still at dawn, the peaks of the High Tatras stand upside down in it, and the first thing a guest sees from the window is that reflection. The Grand Hotel Kempinski High Tatras sits on the southern shore of the lake at about 1,350 metres, the highest address of any five-star hotel in Slovakia.

History

Štrbské Pleso grew up as a climatic spa in the 1870s, when the Tatras were part of the Kingdom of Hungary and the lake was reached by carriage from the railway at Štrba. The first grand hotel on the shore was built in the 1890s, followed by sanatoriums and villas for patients sent up for the air. The resort hosted the FIS Nordic World Ski Championships in 1935 and again in 1970, and the ski jumps and cross-country trails built for the latter are still in use.

After decades as state spa buildings under Czechoslovakia, three of the historic houses on the lakeside, the former Grand Hotel, the Hviezdoslav and the Kriváň, were restored and joined by a new connecting structure. The hotel opened in 2009 under Kempinski management as the first five-star hotel in the Tatras.

Architecture and design

The three buildings keep their own facades, in the alpine-spa manner of the Austro-Hungarian era with steep roofs, timber balconies and pale render, and the new elements between them are glazed so that the old houses read separately from outside. Inside, the interiors are warm and alpine without pastiche: wood, stone and wool, fireplaces in the lounges, and large windows towards the lake. The main building faces the water across a terrace.

Rooms and suites

There are 98 rooms and suites across the three houses. The lake-facing rooms on the upper floors have the view the hotel is built around, with the Solisko ridge above the lake; the rooms at the back look into the forest. The suites in the former Grand Hotel keep the largest proportions, and several have balconies.

Dining

Grand Restaurant is the main dining room, with a terrace onto the lake, serving Slovak and Central European dishes alongside an international menu. The Lobby Lounge and bar serve through the day, with a fire in winter, and there is a cigar lounge. The hotel's three outlets make it the principal address for dinner in the resort, where most other options are mountain huts and hotel restaurants.

Wellness

The Zion Spa occupies the top of the main building with an indoor pool facing the lake and the peaks, saunas, a steam room, a relaxation area and treatment rooms. The pool is the reason to come up in winter as much as in summer, with snow on the terrace outside. Guests ski at the Štrbské Pleso lifts, which start a short distance from the hotel, hike in summer on the trails to the Popradské pleso and the Tatra ridge, and skate on the lake when it freezes.

Weddings and events

The hotel hosts weddings and corporate retreats, with the terrace over the lake for ceremonies in summer and the restaurant and salons for dinners. Meeting rooms in the connecting structure serve conferences, and the resort's position, an hour from Poprad and the Košice motorway, makes it a regular choice for company retreats from Bratislava, Prague and Kraków. Winter weddings use the snow and the lake as the setting.

Location

The hotel is at Štrbské Pleso, in the municipality of Štrba, in the Tatra National Park on the Slovak side of the High Tatras. The Tatra Electric Railway from Poprad and a rack railway from Štrba station stop at Štrbské Pleso, a few minutes from the hotel. Poprad-Tatry airport is about 30 minutes by road, Košice airport about 90 minutes and Kraków about two and a half hours. Among luxury hotels in the High Tatras it has the lake at its door and the ski area within walking distance, a combination the resort's other houses cannot match.