Genießer - & Romantikhotel DAS SCHIFF

A Ship That Never Left the Forest

Approach Hittisau from any direction and the Bregenz Forest does its usual work: dense spruce, open meadow, the particular grey-green of Austrian highlands in shoulder season. The village sits in Vorarlberg, Austria's westernmost state, in a region that has made a quiet art of traditional timber construction. Against this backdrop, DAS SCHIFF reads less like a hotel than like a piece of accumulated local history given rooms and a dining room. The name, The Ship, is not metaphor. It traces directly to a family ancestor, an Austro-Hungarian sailor who returned to Hittisau in 1840 and opened an inn inflected with the maritime world he had left behind. That lineage has run unbroken through the Metzler family in the nearly two centuries since.

In the Bregenzerwald, this kind of continuity is taken seriously. The region has a living craft tradition in timber architecture, the local guild of carpenters and woodworkers, known as the Werkraum Bregenzerwald, has kept that tradition visible in contemporary building as much as in renovation. DAS SCHIFF sits within that context: a finely preserved structure that has been periodically updated without losing the grain of what it was. The woodwork that lines the rooms is not decorative application but structural character, the kind that deepens over decades rather than dating.

What the Building Says About the Region

Vorarlberg's alpine hotel architecture tends toward two registers. One is the modern wellness resort, where clean lines and spa infrastructure serve as the primary proposition. The other, older register is the family-run Romantikhotel or Genießerhotel, where the physical fabric of the building is as much the point as the amenities it contains. DAS SCHIFF belongs firmly to the second category, and the designation matters: a Genießerhotel in the Austrian classification signals a property oriented around pleasure in the broadest sense, where food, setting, and the quality of materials are weighted alongside room count and pool dimensions.

The 66 rooms here position DAS SCHIFF at a scale that sits between the intimate mountain inn and the full-service resort. That middle size is worth understanding. Properties in this range in Vorarlberg tend to carry more individual character than larger resort complexes while still offering the kind of operational depth, multiple dining formats, varied room categories, that smaller guesthouses cannot sustain. For a comparative sense of what different scales produce elsewhere in Austrian alpine hospitality, the Aktiv & Wellnesshotel Bergfried in Tux and the Alpen-Wellness Resort Hochfirst in Obergurgl represent the wellness-forward end of the Tyrolean market, while Hotel Almhof Schneider in Lech shows how family-run operations can scale toward a more polished tier. DAS SCHIFF's positioning in Hittisau, a village rather than a resort town, signals a different set of priorities from the outset.

The Surrounding Argument for Staying Here

Hittisau's appeal is specific. The Bregenz Forest is not a ski destination in the way that Lech or St. Anton is, though cross-country skiing is woven into the seasonal rhythm here. What the area does offer is a particular density of things that are harder to find in more touristed parts of Vorarlberg: farmhouse cheese production that has shaped the regional palate for generations, forested trails that stay quiet relative to their quality, and views across the forest that reward patience rather than spectacle. The hotel's location places these resources within immediate reach rather than requiring a transfer or a planning effort.

The farmhouse cheese tradition in this part of Austria deserves its own note. The Bregenzerwald sits within the broader Vorarlberg cheese culture, which produces Bergkäse, Rässkäse, and Sennkäse using milk from cattle that graze the high alpine meadows in summer. This is one of the few regions in the German-speaking Alps where the cheesemaking cycle remains tied to actual transhumance, with cattle moving between valley and alp. For travellers whose itinerary includes any serious engagement with Austrian food culture, understanding this regional specificity matters more than any single restaurant recommendation.

Rooms and the Logic of Local Materials

The 66 rooms at DAS SCHIFF are described through the language of local wood grain and plush bedding, a combination that, in this region, carries specific meaning. Vorarlberg timber construction uses silver fir, pine, and spruce in ways that produce surfaces with warmth and acoustic softness that synthetic materials do not replicate. Rooms built around these materials in properties that have maintained their fabric over decades tend toward a quality of quietness that is as much physical as psychological. The effect is what the Romantikhotel designation is intended to signal: rooms oriented toward rest and sensory ease rather than toward activity or display.

Current availability at the property should be confirmed directly. Travellers planning a Vorarlberg itinerary who want to compare options at a grander scale might also consider the Falkensteiner Schlosshotel Velden in Carinthia or, for a Salzburg-region alternative, DAS EDELWEISS in Grossarl. Those seeking castle-scale properties in Austria's historic cities will find Schloss Mönchstein in Salzburg and Hotel Sacher Wien at the upper end of the institutional-heritage tier. For high-altitude design, LEADING Hotel Hochgurgl and Grand Tirolia Kitzbühel represent Tyrolean alternatives with different character altogether.

Planning a Stay

Hittisau is accessible from Bregenz, the state capital of Vorarlberg, which sits on Lake Constance and has rail connections to Zurich and Munich. The Bregenz Forest villages, including Hittisau, are typically reached by car or regional bus from Bregenz. The cross-country skiing season runs through winter months, while summer hiking and cheese tourism draw a separate visitor profile.

For travellers building a longer Austrian itinerary, the Rosewood Schloss Fuschl near Salzburg, the Naturhotel Waldklause in Längenfeld, and the Alpenresort Schwarz in Obermieming each represent distinct positions in the Austrian alpine hotel spectrum. The Alpin Resort Sacher in Seefeld and Alpinresort Schillerkopf in Bürserberg are worth noting for their proximity to Vorarlberg specifically.