Cars & Spas

Six nights from Munich through the Black Forest into the Austrian Tyrol, navigational rather than guided, in the guest’s own car, with the price quoted on application.

The Interalpen is the centrepiece and an unusual one: a five-star hotel in the Tyrol at sixteen hundred metres where guests drive their car directly into the reception hall, with fifty-three hundred square metres of spa behind it.

Munich opens it, then the Black Forest and a curated route through forest and mountain roads into Austria, taking in derestricted autobahn, wide valleys and quiet back roads. Three nights at the Interalpen follow, with the best of the local driving from there: flowing valley roads at one end of the scale and tight mountain passes at the other, at three to five hours a day rather than dawn to dusk. A full day is given over to the spa with no driving at all, which on a trip pitched at couples is the sensible inclusion.

Three nights at the Interalpen, evening meals every night running to three, four and five courses, a suggested daily route with the loan of a preprogrammed satnav, the group-booked Eurotunnel crossing and a full spa day are all included; fuel, lunches, the car itself, tips and insurance are not. The price is given on application. Late spring to early autumn is the window, since the Tyrolean passes carry snow outside it. Seven days with three nights in one hotel and a day off in the middle is the gentlest thing the operator runs.