The Bon Vivant's Choice 5. - Rosewood Schloss Fuschl
When everyone heads south for summer, always run to the hills...
Let me start by saying nowhere in the world rivals the Mediterranean when it comes to spending summer by the sea. Granted there are countless beaches around the world which trump those available on our doorstep, however, growing up admiring the yachts, eating dinner along marina boardwalks, and strolling through lively city squares at night is what connects with me on some deeper level which those places outside of the Mediterranean just don’t offer. So whilst I’m aware there are whiter beaches and clearer water elsewhere, the connection to a glamourous century of old where Agnelli raced along the south coast in a 1960s Ferrari and the founding of the Aga Khan’s Porto Cervo put Sardinia on the map, just has a magical sense of aspiration and wonderment about it.
And yet, as I say every year without doubt, the most underrated place to go in the summer is the mountains. Whilst everyone flocks to the beaches and Spanish islands, I will always head to the Alps in July. This summer is no different: I’ve already been to St. Moritz twice, I admit with guilt. But this past week I spent in a completely unfamiliar place - unfamiliar, yet completely unimaginable. A few days on the shores of Lake Fuschl at the Rosewood hotel fit perfectly with my ethos of an alpine summer. Ok admittedly Fuschl isn’t at any significant elevation, but there are certainly mountains surrounding the lake, so it counts.
Once a hunting lodge with over 500 years of history, the property now sits as a jewel in the Rosewood portfolio, with over 150 masterpieces hanging on its walls, and a spa to rival some of the most renowned in the Alps. The perfect place then for me to arrive in Bentley’s latest GTC Mulliner, equipped with swim shorts and not much else…
Fuschlsee itself is incredible: fed via underground springs rather than glacial water gives the lake its bright blue hue and crystal clear water. Standing on the jetty each morning, watching the mist lift off the surface while the church bells of Fuschl am See drift across the water, you understand immediately why the Habsburgs and the film crews of The Sound of Music both found their way here. There is something almost theatrical about the setting: dense pine forest running straight down to the shoreline, the Schafberg rising in the distance, and not a single high-rise or beach club (only the resident ‘lake club’) in sight to break the illusion that time has simply stopped somewhere in the 1500s.
The Schloss itself plays along beautifully. Wandering the corridors before breakfast, past Old Masters’ and contemporary pieces hung with equal reverence, you get the sense that Rosewood didn’t so much renovate a hunting lodge as curate a private museum you happen to be allowed to sleep in. My room looked directly onto the lake, and each evening the light would turn that particular shade of gold somewhere between alpenglow and candlelight.
Mornings on the water on a paddleboard, an afternoon at the spa - genuinely a match for anything I’ve experienced in St. Moritz or Crans-Montana - and evenings spent at the Seeterrasse. There’s a discretion to Fuschl that I find increasingly rare: no influencers, no scene to be seen at, just quiet, exceptional taste.
To me, Fuschl is the Alps when nobody’s watching. It won’t replace my July pilgrimage to the mountains - if anything it’s confirmed the whole theory. The Mediterranean will always have a magnetic pull, but there’s a different kind of aspiration on offer at a lake like this: five centuries of quiet history, an art collection most museums would envy, and water so clear you’d swear it was Alpine myth rather than fact.
Happy roadtripping!
Azzam