Playing football, skiing and jumping on the trampoline on the roof: The Falkensteiner Family Resort Lido in the Pustertal takes the children’s hotel principle to the extreme. But is this abundance of offers really necessary for a successful family holiday?
Of
Jochen Temsch
Black and white photos from the past hang in the passageway to the spa area. One shows a cottage by the lake, with a few guests in folding chairs squinting in the sun. It all started so tranquilly, in 1957, when the first Italian tourists came over the Brenner Pass and turned left at the first opportunity in their VW Beetle, into the Puster Valley. Pension Lido was the name of the little house in the village of Ehrenburg. It belonged to Maria and Josef Falkensteiner, who called it that because they had been to Venice on a short honeymoon – “and because we in our family have always thought differently,” as their son Erich Falkensteiner says today. He was born in this little house, which soon became a hotel, and spent his childhood and youth there.