longevity, without the lecture | l’hermitage

The Arula Chalets

High above the village of Lech, in the exclusive Oberlech area, the Arula Chalets have long offered a rare combination: the privacy of a mountain retreat with the polish of a five-star hotel. This summer, following an extensive renovation focused on longevity and holistic well-being, that promise has a new center of gravity – a wellness sanctuary that now anchors the entire property.

The journey there is part of the escape. Arriving from Zurich, Innsbruck or Munich, the final stretch unfolds through dramatic alpine scenery and switchback roads. In winter, guests drive straight into an underground garage and step from car to chalet without touching the snow outside; in summer, the same entrance opens onto hiking trails and quiet mountain paths.

Arula Chalet 1

Comprising two private residences that together sleep up to 30 guests, the property manages to feel both expansive and intimate. A dedicated team – butlers, chefs, chauffeurs, concierges, wellness specialists – anticipates every need while leaving guests free to set their own pace.

Arula Chalet 1, the larger of the two, sleeps up to 22 and is built for shared moments: floor-to-ceiling windows framing uninterrupted views of the peaks, long dinners, evenings by the fire, a private bar, cards and darts.
Next door, Arula Chalet 2 holds a more intimate scale for groups of up to eight. Across both, the design leans into warm woods and stone textures rather than ornament – contemporary alpine style that feels grounded more than showy.

Arula Chalet 1

Arula Chalet 1

The chalets first welcomed guests in December 2018, and modern conveniences (Sonos throughout, a private cinema, in-room voice assistants) keep the property connected without breaking the sense of remove. But the real story this year is downstairs, where the lower floors of Chalet 1 have been rebuilt into a wellness sanctuary pairing traditional rituals with more clinical, performance-driven therapies.

The morning begins with an osteopathic massage – targeted, restorative work that leaves the body loose and the mind, gradually, following suit. From there, the newly built sound healing room takes over: a cream-and-beige space acoustically sealed off from the outside world, where no two sessions of therapeutic frequency and vibration play out quite the same way.

Arula Chalet 1. Massage room

Arula Chalet 1. Sound Healing Room

Outdoors, mornings move at a different tempo. A Qigong session on the terrace, timed to the first light hitting the peaks, pairs gentle movement with breathwork in a way that feels less like exercise and more like syncing up with the landscape. Those who’d rather start the day alone can instead take the newly restored 14-metre indoor pool, its relaxation couches positioned for uninterrupted quiet.

Recovery here takes several forms. Halotherapy fills a room with fine salt particles said to support skin and respiratory health; ceramic loungers use infrared heat to encourage circulation; and a flotation bed fitted with water jets and light therapy produces something close to weightlessness. It’s the kind of treatment that asks nothing of you beyond letting go.

Arula Chalet 1. Indoor Pool

For guests chasing something more clinical, the property’s newest additions go further. A hyperbaric chamber offers pressurised oxygen sessions from 20 minutes to two hours, with dual seating for those who’d rather do it together, while a cryotherapy chamber and a traditional cold plunge pool (the latter, notably, the original inspiration for Arula’s entire longevity concept) deliver a sharper kind of reset.

An exclusive partnership with skincare brand Augustinus Bader rounds out the beauty side of the program, alongside an upgraded fitness centre.

Arula Chalet 1. Cryo-chamber and Hyperbaric Oxygen Chamber

Arula Chalet 1. Fitness Centre

The philosophy extends past the treatment rooms and into the glass. ‘Longevity Through the Glass’, the property’s alcohol-free drinks programme, swaps out the usual wine list for de-alcoholised sparkling wines, fruit-forward creations, and a botanical sparkling tea – proof that cutting alcohol doesn’t mean cutting indulgence. The cocktail list follows suit, built around alcohol-free spirits and house-made kombucha rather than anything harder.

Food, meanwhile, stays central to the experience. Head Chef Viola Köngeter moves fluidly between Austrian tradition and contemporary international plates, whether the format is a tasting menu, à la carte, or a long family-style table built for conversation.

Arula Chalet 1. Bar

Arula Chalet 1

The mountains themselves round out the program: sunrise yoga on the terrace, a guided walk through native alpine plants that later becomes a personalised herbal tea – small rituals that tie the wellness concept back to the landscape it’s built into.

Did we leave restored? Without question. But what stays with you isn’t any single treatment or the sweep of the view; it’s the way the whole stay is engineered around unhurried time. No treatment here felt rushed, no schedule felt imposed. That, more than any single amenity, is what The Arula Chalets is actually selling: permission to slow down completely, in a setting built to make that feel effortless.
 
Discover more about The Arula Chalets here

photography. courtesy of The Arula Chalets
words. Clara La Rosa

Nikol (Nickey) Vyhlidalova.

Getting to Zermatt, Switzerland, requires a level of commitment that most alpine destinations simply do not demand. Because the village is completely car-free, the final leg of the journey relies on a cog railway that climbs from Täsch through the valley, bringing travellers into an alpine sanctuary that feels entirely removed from the frantic pace of the modern world. By the time CERVO Mountain Resort appears above the village centre – all dark timber, natural stone and unobstructed Matterhorn views – the journey has already initiated the decompression process, allowing guests to leave the noise of everyday life behind.

Schön! alive arrived for the inaugural ALTO Retreat, CERVO’s new three-day trail running programme, ahead of its official launch on 26th June. ALTO, the resort’s newly launched movement and performance initiative, is designed for what its founders describe as a more considered way of engaging with landscape, body and mind. In practice, it means breathwork at altitude, cold plunge pools, a 15km mountain trail before most people have fully woken up, and the unmistakable realisation that your relationship with your own body deserves more attention than you have been giving it.

Nikol (Nickey) Vyhlidalova.

Nikol (Nickey) Vyhlidalova.

The programme is led by Martin Anthamatten, a former Swiss national ski mountaineering team member and record-setting winner of the Zermatt-Rothorn race. Anthamatten is the kind of guide who makes covering enormous distances across steep terrain feel like an entirely reasonable thing to do – beginners will have some trust issues afterwards, but that’s part of the experience. His philosophy is about understanding what the body is actually communicating. “It’s important to feel when you’re in a block; you have to feel the body sensations,” he says. “Sleep is the most important. I think it’s better to recover a bit more than less.” For someone who has spent a career at the sharp end of alpine endurance sport, the emphasis on recovery over output is both surprising and immediately convincing.

The retreat begins before the trail does, with morning breathwork sessions carried out by the specialised team at Keen Wellbeing. These controlled breathing techniques are engineered to prepare the body for contrast therapy, which moves systematically between hot steam and freezing ice baths. Drawing on both Eastern and Nordic traditions at the Ātman Mountain Spa, this contrast routine delivers intense mental clarity and reduces systemic inflammation before runners even lace up their shoes. The ice is cold in the way that ice is cold, naturally, so there is no getting used to it. But the after-effect, that particular clarity that arrives about three minutes after climbing out, the one that makes everything else seem manageable, is difficult to argue with.

CERVO, Ritual Room and Ātman Mountain Spa.

CERVO Resort.

The trail run itself is a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Fifteen kilometres from the resort, up through the mountain terrain and across to Sunnega, then along the ridge and around Lake Leisee, with the Matterhorn appearing and reappearing at intervals throughout, its peak dusted with a thin layer of snow that made the whole thing look like someone had touched it up with a paintbrush for the occasion. Coach Florent Tillie – patient beyond all reasonable expectation – ensured that nobody was left behind, a task that required considerable diplomatic skill at various points during the ascent. The terrain shifts quickly in this part of Switzerland, from well-maintained paths to rocky switchbacks to open meadow, and the trail demands constant attention. What it gives back though – apart from muscular pain – is a perspective that is very difficult to achieve at sea level.

Sunnega, reached by an underground funicular from the village, sits at around 2,300 metres and looks directly at the Matterhorn across a valley that has the quality of something constructed. Lake Leisee, a high-altitude lake above it, is small and still and surrounded by Alpine flowers in June. Running past it feels slightly absurd, especially considering how much easier it would be to travel across the mountain that way.

Nikol (Nickey) Vyhlidalova.

CERVO, Madre Nostra.

Nutrition and hydration are managed in partnership with Swiss performance brand PEAQ Hydration, with custom, nutrient-dense menus served across CERVO’s three regional restaurants: ‘Ferdinand,’ ‘Madre Nostra’ and ‘Bazaar’. Each is based on regional produce, although the menus offer three distinct culinary experiences – from Thai-based dishes to classic Italian-style favourites.

CERVO itself is worth discussing beyond its role as a retreat venue. The resort’s 54 rooms and suites across three lodges, designed by German design studio Dreimeta, operate as a clustered village of seven distinct chalets. Nomad pairs rugged industrial accents with mid-century utility styling for the modern explorer; Alpinist leans into a minimalist, Nordic-inspired interpretation of high-altitude refuge; and Huntsman references classic alpine lodge heritage with deep leathers, rich wools and private open fireplaces. The interior architecture is grounded heavily in sustainably sourced local larch wood, raw concrete and textured granite, paired with customised details like integrated record players and private saunas that make the spaces feel instantly warm and lived-in.

CERVO, Bazaar.

CERVO, Alpinist Room.

For those who want the full three-day version, the retreat is structured around five pillars: performance and technique, recovery and regeneration, nutrition and hydration, mindfulness, and community. The last one is the easiest to underestimate and the hardest to replicate outside of a context like this, a small group of people doing something physically demanding together in a landscape that puts individual effort into immediate and humbling perspective.

The ALTO Trail Club and Lab, which launched weekly from 10th June, extends the same philosophy to a broader audience, open to beginners and experienced runners alike, with Anthamatten and the ALTO team leading guided runs against that same Matterhorn backdrop. The second ALTO Retreat will follow in September. 

Discover more about the ALTO Trail Club and Lab here.

photography. courtesy of CERVO, Nikol (Nickey) Vyhlidalova
words. Gennaro Costanzo

Bovey Castle.

Thomas Radford stops beside a patch of greenery that most people would step over without a second thought, reaches down, and holds up a small, heart-shaped leaf. “Enchanter’s nightshade”, he announces, with the tone of someone about to reveal something magnificent. “And you’d think, ‘Oh wow, must be dangerous, sort of magical’, but it actually doesn’t really do anything.” The group laughs. Radford is, it turns out, exactly the sort of guide who makes you look at a hedgerow differently, permanently.

‘The Wild Larder: a Foraging Walk and Lunch’ programme created in partnership with PoB Hotels as part of their ‘Blooming Britain’ initiative, is one of those experiences that sounds lovely on paper and then, in person, turns out to be something considerably more absorbing than that. Radford, an expert forager and wild food advocate who has spent years studying the plants, landscapes and folklore of Britain, leads guests through coastlines, woodland and countryside with a knowledge that feels embedded in his mind since he was born. Schön! alive travelled to the Devon countryside to experience the programme first-hand, following Radford through woodland as he revealed the hidden stories growing in Britain’s landscapes.

Thomas Radford.

June, Radford explains at the outset, is close to the ideal month for this kind of walk. The hedgerows are full, the season is at its most legible and the landscape is doing all the work for you. At Bovey Castle in Devon – recently named Best Large Hotel in England at the VisitEngland Awards for Excellence 2026 – where the series launched on 5th June, the route winds through woodland and along a river before arriving at a wildflower meadow that Radford had scouted the day before. “Last time I got up there, it was just earth,” he says. “I went in there yesterday, and it’s this sea of blue and gold. They’ve got poppies in there, cornflowers, and it’s on a lovely side of the hill with a sculpture, a view across the valley.” He had been genuinely moved by it – that much is clear.

What makes Radford an unusually good guide is that he never treats the plants as botanical data. Every species comes with a story, a use, a piece of history that makes the landscape feel inhabited by something other than trees. The enchanter’s nightshade, for instance, belongs to Circe: not the ‘Game of Thrones’ character, he clarifies, but the sorceress from the Odyssey, who turned Ulysses’ men into pigs. Nobody knows whether the plant actually does that. “Maybe it turns you into a pig if you eat enough of it,” he offers cheerfully, before moving on – Circe was a demi god after all, so some magic had to be involved anyway.

Bovey Castle.

Radford is fully prepared for a zombie invasion and, during our guide, doesn’t waste time teaching the best way to make use of these plants. For instance, he describes ivy’s saponins, the same compounds found in soap, as a perfectly effective laundry detergent made by boiling the leaves into a tea, leaving it overnight, then straining it straight into your washing machine. Somewhere else, he points out ribwort plantain, a common weed with antihistamine properties, historically used to treat bee stings, or herb Robert, a small pink-flowered plant currently being researched for anti-cancer properties. 

Many plants have some really fun facts about them: dandelion leaves are perfect for salads, while laurels contain uncultivated cyanide that can cause fainting or possibly – you guessed it – death. Speaking of which, Radford points out to two particular species: monkshood, the most poisonous plant in Britain, and hemlock, the most dangerous, both with a matter-of-factness that makes you glad he is there.

However, the plant he seems most personally “attached” to is mugwort. A relative of wormwood, the herb that gives absinthe its character, mugwort has been used for centuries as a medicinal plant, a brewing ingredient and, according to Radford, a dream enhancer. It contains a compound reputed to produce lucid dreams, and he has, as he confirms, experimented with this: “My dreams are so bonkers anyway that I wouldn’t know the difference.” Pregnant women, he adds with a slight change of register, should avoid it entirely.

Bovey Castle.

Bovey Castle.

What connects all of it, across every plant and story and piece of folklore, is a philosophy Radford returns to repeatedly. “Two, three hundred years ago, you had to know this stuff or you would die,” he says. “You couldn’t pop down the chemist.” The plants around the edges of fields, often overlooked as weeds, were placed there because the food in the field went to the landowner and in winter there was nothing left. People propagated them deliberately, as survival. “When you start to read nature in that way, you just have respect for them. And when you go out in the woods, you don’t feel quite so intimidated by this green shit.” The last two words land with a warmth that makes the observation, somehow, feel like a gift.

At Thurlestone Hotel on 23rd June, the walk follows the Devon coast, with the Atlantic visible between the headlands as Radford guides guests through the coastal hedgerows, the flavours changing with the salt air and the terrain. The experience concludes with a three-course lunch built around the morning’s discoveries, which is the part of the day that makes everything academic become, rather suddenly, personal. At Calcot & Spa, where the walk takes place across 220 acres of rewilded Cotswolds grounds on 30th June, the landscape shifts again: hedgerow herbs, wildflowers, edible leaves and foraged fruits moving from hand to kitchen to plate, the distance between field and fork reduced to almost nothing. Calcot extends the spirit of ‘Blooming Britain’ into the rest of the day and, for those who want it, the rest of the afternoon.

Bovey Castle.

The broader ‘Blooming Britain’ programme, which runs across the PoB Hotels collection until late summer, extends the same logic through different landscapes and disciplines. The horticultural thread continues at Gravetye Manor, where head florist Sharon Coote translates the estate’s historic grounds into custom flower workshops, mirrored further north at Cromlix through bespoke floral embroidery and watercolour masterclasses. The Hebridean Princess anchors the botanical narrative offshore by charting curated garden tours across Argyll and Antrim, while Fingal in Edinburgh anchors it to the urban waterfront, connecting guests directly to the wild meadows lining the Water of Leith. At The Royal Crescent in Bath, ‘Bridgerton’ fans will recognise the Georgian façade from the first moment they see it. In Scotland, Glenapp Castle sits near ‘Outlander’ filming locations, and the concierge can arrange bespoke tartan and cashmere for those hoping to leave slightly better dressed than when they arrived.

“With Blooming Britain, we wanted to celebrate all those wonderfully British seasonal rituals through the individuality of our hotels,” says Kalindi Juneja, Chief Executive of PoB Hotels. “Foraging in the countryside, discovering a new designer, wandering through flower-filled gardens, stretching out a long lunch a little further than planned: this is Britain at its most joyful, expressive and beautifully unhurried.”

Back in the woods, Radford pauses beside a patch of ivy climbing a leaning oak and says something that stays with you. When you understand what is around you, when you can read the landscape and feel what it has fed and healed and hidden across centuries, you feel connected, he says, “connected to your ancestors”. And standing there in the British countryside in June, surrounded by plants that turned men into pigs and cured bee stings and gave people lucid dreams, it is surprisingly easy to believe him.

Bovey Castle.

The Wild Larder experience at Thurlestone Hotel takes place on 23rd June. Calcot & Spa hosts its session on 30th June. Further dates at Gilpin Hotel & Lake House will follow later in the season. 

Discover more here.

photography. courtesy of PoB Hotels
words. Gennaro Costanzo