Schloss Elmau (The Retreat)

The one thing

The Retreat is the newer, larger roomed half of Schloss Elmau, forty seven suites built between 2013 and 2015 around space and privacy, and it is the wing the German government chose twice over, housing world leaders during both the 2015 and 2022 G7 summits and making Schloss Elmau the first hotel anywhere to host two. Its own Shantigiri Spa carries that sense of retreat into the water itself, with a Japanese style outdoor Onsen pool held at forty degrees and set against the jagged grey white wall of the Wetterstein mountains, built for the long warm soak that follows real cold, not a quick dip.

The verdict

Schloss Elmau began in 1916 as the personal project of the theologian Johannes Müller, who wanted a house built for personal freedom and communal life rather than the usual idea of a hotel as a retreat from the world. Music became the way that idea was lived out. From 1957 the German British Music Week brought figures such as Benjamin Britten and Yehudi Menuhin to the valley as a deliberate act of postwar reconciliation, and the castle still runs well over a hundred concerts a year alongside regular book talks and public debates, a working cultural programme rather than a plaque on the wall.

A fire destroyed most of the original building in 2005, and the current owner, Dietmar Müller-Elmau, who spent part of his youth in India, rebuilt the resort in two parts, the restored Hideaway and the all new Retreat, completed in March 2015. His own hand runs through the whole place rather than a branded design studio's, Bavarian wood floors sitting against Italian lighting and Indian furniture, with a Ganesha elephant motif recurring often enough that one of the resort's own restaurants takes the name. The MICHELIN Guide awards the resort Three Keys for an extraordinary stay, and inside the Hideaway, IKIGAI holds Two MICHELIN Stars of its own for a French and Japanese influenced kitchen, a food award that sits entirely apart from the hotel's own Keys even though both belong to the same address.

The Retreat itself holds forty seven of the resort's hundred and forty seven rooms and suites, built later and larger, up to two hundred square metres, and pitched from the start around privacy rather than the castle's more sociable, public rooms. That mix of scale and discretion gives The Retreat its own identity within the wider resort, a quieter, more contemporary counterpoint to the Hideaway's older, more sociable rooms.

The water

Shantigiri's adults only side is built around two pieces of water that do very different jobs. A twenty metre outdoor infinity pool stays heated to thirty two degrees through the year, a proper length to swim rather than a plunge to dip in, and beside it sits the Onsen, heated enough that the cold mountain air around it becomes part of the point rather than something to brace against, the pool one reviewer who stayed there singled out as the highlight of the whole visit. Two sauna areas sit alongside them, one open to swimwear optional use, with an intimate lounge built around an open fireplace and a relaxation room lit through floor to ceiling windows giving the whole sequence somewhere quiet to land.

The Retreat runs a second, parallel spa world for families, Shantigiri's own Family Spa, with its own twenty five metre outdoor infinity pool, a barrel sauna, a relaxation room looking out to the mountains, a gym and seven treatment rooms, so a stay here brings a proper water offer for the adults only side and for families alike, each with its own circuit rather than one squeezed around the other's timetable.

Treatments

A Thai neck and back massage worked with herbal stamps sits at the centre of Shantigiri's own treatment list, alongside one to one swimming lessons run most mornings for anyone wanting to build confidence in the water rather than simply float in it. The spa's own Longevity Retreats go further again, weaving ice bathing, sport, yoga, Traditional Chinese Medicine and intermittent fasting into a single programme rather than selling each as a separate add on, a structured route into the kind of reset most hotel spas only gesture at with one signature treatment.

Two named practitioners carry a genuinely clinical thread through the wider resort, Dr Imke König in Traditional Chinese Medicine and Anne Meinhardt across osteopathy and physiotherapy. The Retreat's own dining rounds the picture out, Summit running an adults only Mediterranean menu and Summit Pavilion a sushi counter, both inside The Retreat itself, with Ganesha available for private dining and IKIGAI's Two MICHELIN Starred kitchen a short walk away in the Hideaway for anyone wanting the resort's headline table.

Getting in

A stay is arranged directly with the hotel, by phone, email or WhatsApp, and spa reception takes care of booking swimming lessons and treatments once a stay is confirmed, with yoga, Pilates and Qigong sessions arranged through The Retreat's own guest calendar. Innsbruck's airport is the closer of the two, around an hour by road, while Munich, the bigger hub, sits around two hours away, so this suits a properly planned journey into the Bavarian Alps rather than a spontaneous stop between meetings.

What to know before you fall in love

The Retreat's own Shantigiri Spa sits a short walk from the Hideaway and its larger Badehaus spa and hammam, so a guest wanting both experiences on one stay is crossing the resort's grounds between buildings rather than finding everything under one roof. The whole resort is built around an eclectic, maximalist style mixing Bavarian, Italian and Indian pieces, a deliberate choice that will delight plenty of guests and simply not suit a guest who prefers a quieter, more minimal room. In a quieter season only around half of the resort's restaurants tend to stay open, so anyone wanting the full spread of dining is better placed visiting in a busier part of the year. The Retreat itself is not an entirely adults only wing, since its own Shantigiri Family Spa sits alongside the adults only side, so anyone wanting the whole building kept free of children should look elsewhere in the resort rather than assume The Retreat guarantees it.

Best for

This suits a guest who wants genuine scale and privacy inside a resort with a real story behind it rather than a wellness brand dropped onto a pretty building, and anyone who wants the Onsen soak itself to be the reason for the trip. It is a strong match for a traveller drawn to the G7 history and the music and literary tradition that still runs through the place today, and for a family wanting its own proper spa alongside an adults only wing rather than children simply tolerated around the edges. It suits less well a guest who wants one single building to hold the whole resort's offer, since The Retreat is one half of a two hotel address rather than a self contained whole.