the waygabounds

Always take all the nice articles about new hotels with a grain of salt. Or more like: With a tablespoon of salt, when it comes to the often hyped PURADIES**** in the small town of Leogang, which is located in Austria’s county of Salzburg. I spent three nights there, during a snowboarding trip with my best friend. We were thrilled, because we had read a lot of praising articles about it, and of course there’s the website with these amazing pictures. And it’s new, it was opened in December 2016.

Oh boy, were we disappointed. We got there relatively late, so we couldn’t really see our surroundings that well upon arrival. The entrance area looked really nice though, very modern. The concierge, who I believe was also the owner or the son of the owner, did our check-in without great enthusiasm, he wasn’t exactly unfriendly, but not friendly at all either. No joke, no information about where we could get food during this time of the evening or anything. And even though you pay at least 95 Euros per day (and person!), you can’t expect that someone is helping you with your luggage or showing you your room. No, sir. That wouldn’t cost the hotel a cent, but it would make a huge difference. It’s something you could expect for that price – and something that is a no brainer in other hotels, like in the amazingly Hotel Ronacher in Carinthia.

So we got our luggage and all of our snowboarding stuff and kinda schlepped everything through a very loooong hallway, got down to the lower ground floor, schlepped everything through an even longer hallway and to another lift and then got up to the third floor. It kinda took us some time. The décor is all white concrete and grey, which can be very stylish, lovely and cozy at the same time, as for example at the ElisabethHotel Private Retreat in Tyrol. But not here. Somehow you feel that there’s some heart missing. It kinda runs through the whole establishment: Nothing comes with heart or a bit of fun or friendliness. The room itself was clean and very spacious, equipped with a rainforest shower – but no tub (at least in our room). If you think about it: It would be kinda nice to relax in a hot bubble bath after a day spent out in the cold on the slopes.

The food was delicious though. Breakfast was set up in buffet style and the selection was huge, fresh and nicely arranged. But here, too, it just became so obvious that nobody really cares. We were confronted with a thing that was apparently the coffee machine, but from how it looked like, it could have also been a space ship. Nobody there to explain the thing to you, sides from other guests who might have learned by experience. Also, nobody told us that we could order egg dishes at a waiter, to get things that weren’t at the counters, too. We figured, because other guests did so. There was no info on the table, no menu and the waitress didn’t tell us. Maybe to avoid extra-work. I don’t know. And dinner was – I’d say “heavenly”. I feel like the only person there who is good at his/her job is the chef. It was great, really. The food is simply amazing. Did I already mention that the food is awesome?! Really nice is also the bar, which is made out of a few thousand wooden cubes – designwise a masterpiece.

But now to something different. The skiing part of it. The hotel is close to the slopes and if there’s enough snow, you actually can go via a slope directly to the hotel. But for skiing out you always have to walk about ten minutes. Which is not that bad, but it’s also not how it’s advertised on the website. Also, the wellness or spa part of it… don’t expect something great. There are four saunas and rainforest showers. That’s about it. You can book treatments, but when we went to the spa house, there was nobody at the spa reception, even though it was a rainy day and kinda obvious that people would want to use the spa area. There was also nobody who was running the saunas. They were off until late afternoon. No pool, no whirlpool. For the summer season there’s a small lake, but that’s about it. The relaxing areas are not really relaxing, because the so-called “Badehaus” (why is it called “bath house” if there’s no bath?) is loud. Even on top of it you can hear everything that’s happening downstairs, for example people showering. So if you really want to spend a lot of bucks, spend them somewhere else, because for that amount of money they want from you, there’s just not enough you get for it. Oh, on a sidenote: You can also get your own chalet there, but as we had a room, I can’t tell you what they are like.

More information:
PURADIES****
Rain 9
5771 Leogang
www.puradies.at

Rates start around 95 Euros/day (so one night is 190 Euros!) and person during the summer season and about 130 Euros/day and person during the winter season.

Pictures (C) PURADIES