Hotel Hollweger

We have just returned from a wonderful holiday, staying at this lovely hotel in St Gilgen. We opted for a Junior Suite with balcony and lake view and it was just perfect with a great view of the lake and hotel gardens from within the room and the spacious balcony. The room and en suite was also immaculately clean, with room service usually completed whilst we were enjoying the delightful breakfast. All the staff were friendly and helpful and the food in the restaurant delicious, with an exceptional variety of choices of starters and salads. It required will power to leave room for the following intermediate, main (of which there was a choice of three) and desert courses. We were allocated a table in an excellent position in the restaurant for the duration of our stay, again with lovely views of the lake and hotel gardens. It is an easy short walk in to St Gilgen and the Lake shore. The hotel's private bathing area is about a 15 minute stroll and is well equipped with a sauna, toilet, shower facilities, sun loungers and parasols. From the private bathing area there is a very pleasant lakeside walk to Furberg where you can catch the boat back to St Gilgen. We had a very enjoyable holiday and will definitely return.

A room at the rear - the lake side - of the Hollweger is a great place to be. It sits a little way up the hill from the lake itself so that the view from room 35 looked the entire length of the Wolfgangsee, and in the evening we could see the twinkly lights of Strobl in the far distance amid the mountains. We had a wonderful ten nights mostly exploring the immediate area of the Wolfgangsee itself and the little villages or tiny towns around it; St Gilgen is attractive and well-supplied with eating and drinking houses while St Wolfgang is almost ridiculously picturesque. The village of Strobl at the lake's far end is just a lovely spot to sit with a drink and stare into the distance. We walked all round the lake at one time or another and used the steamers as our local bus service, and relished the story of St Wolfgang himself who hurled an axe four kilometres to determine where he would found the church that now bears his name. The Hollweger's breakfasts and dinners were outstanding; our final dinner was taken out of doors with the lake as our tablecloth, and no pictures could do it justice. But there were a couple of issues - it was quite extraordinary to find that in 2019 a hotel of this standing didn't offer the means to make a hot drink in our room, and if anything more astonishing still to find no fridge there (let alone a minibar) during a very hot spell. We tried to cover both deficiencies by keeping a bottle of sparkling water tepid in the shade on the balcony, but we felt the lack of both fridge and kettle keenly. The arrangement of the room itself was not ideal - while the huge picture windows at the lake end were of course a delight, the bathroom was too clever by half. An elaborate glazed arrangement was designed to allow the bather or bathers to open an internal blind and enjoy the full benefit of the view through the bedroom while bathing. Frankly we couldn't be bothered with this, but the irritation was that anyone visiting the bathroom during the night and switching on the light lit up the entire bedroom in a way that was very unwelcome to the sleeping partner! The restaurant service was inclined vary in its attentiveness - one evening we sat for 35 minutes between our starter and our main course - the waitress who said in passing "it's coming" might have offered an apology but didn't do so. We were more amused than inconvenienced when we realised that a laid-back jazzy-sounding CD that played most of the August evenings included at least two unmistakable Christmas carol tunes. Would we return? Yes, with pleasure, but we would very much hope that the Hollweger might have addressed these small matters along the way.