Park Hotel Vitznau

At the foot of the Rigi, on the shore of Lake Lucerne, a turreted Belle Époque building of 1903 stands with its lawns running down to the water. The Park Hotel Vitznau reopened in 2013 after a rebuilding that turned it into a house of suites and residences, with wine and cooking at the centre of the offer.

History

Vitznau was already on the map when the hotel was built. In 1871 the Vitznau-Rigi railway opened as the first mountain rack railway in Europe, carrying visitors up from the steamer landing to the summit of the Rigi, the mountain Turner had painted in every light and Mark Twain climbed in A Tramp Abroad. The Park Hotel followed in 1903, part of the last wave of grand hotel building around the lake before the First World War.

For most of the twentieth century it ran as a seasonal lakeside hotel. In the late 2000s it was bought by the Austrian investor Peter Pühringer, whose foundation also owns the Palais Coburg in Vienna. He closed it for a rebuilding that lasted several years, and the hotel reopened in 2013 with far fewer and much larger units.

Architecture and design

The 1903 building, with its towers and steep roofs, was restored, and most of the new construction was set into the slope behind and below it, so the outline seen from the lake changed little. Inside, the treatment is contemporary, with modern materials and technology behind the historic shell.

Rooms and suites

There are no standard rooms. Accommodation is in suites and residences, several dozen in all, most facing the lake, and a number are decorated around individual themes. The residences are laid out as apartments for longer stays. From the lake side the view runs across the water to the Bürgenstock ridge, with Pilatus further west.

Dining

Food and wine sit at the core of the house. The flagship restaurant, focus Atelier, serves tasting menus, and a second restaurant, Prisma, has a more relaxed style and a terrace over the lake. The cellars, dug during the rebuilding, hold a very large collection with deep holdings of Bordeaux, and the hotel shares its approach to wine with the Palais Coburg, which has the same owner. Tastings are a regular part of the programme.

Wellness

The spa has indoor and outdoor pools, saunas, treatment rooms and a gym. The outdoor pool, whose edge appears to run straight into the lake, is the image that turns up in most photographs of the hotel.

Weddings and events

The hotel holds weddings and private celebrations in its restaurants, salons and gardens, and with the lake at the end of the lawn the garden is the usual setting for summer receptions. Meeting rooms serve board meetings and small seminars; the house is not built for large conferences.

Location

Vitznau lies on the northern shore of Lake Lucerne, east of Weggis, where the Rigi shelters the village and gives it a mild climate; palms grow along the promenade. Paddle steamers of the Lake Lucerne Navigation Company call at the landing on their way up the lake, about an hour out of Lucerne, and the drive to the city takes around half an hour. The Rigi rack railway starts beside the landing. Zurich Airport is roughly an hour by car. Lucerne's old town, the Chapel Bridge and Jean Nouvel's KKL concert hall are best reached by boat. Few luxury hotels on Lake Lucerne sit so directly on the water, with a mountain railway at the door.