Prokulus

Naturns sits at the mouth of the Vinschgau valley, about twenty minutes west of Merano, in the sunniest corner of South Tyrol, and the Brunner family has spent decades turning that microclimate into a full-time vacation. Prokulus is a 4-star superior house that reads more like two hotels stitched together than one: the original main building, and the Aquagarden, a glass and warm-wood wing opened in 2014 with palm trees, a Mediterranean park, and a panorama terrace looking straight at the Naturns Alps. Between them they hold ten pools, ten saunas, and ten relaxation rooms across roughly 950 square meters of water. The rooms follow the same split. The main house carries doubles, suites, and family suites of up to 68 square meters that sleep six, while the Residence Aquagarden runs from compact comfort rooms up to a 75 square meter family suite, all linked to the main building by an internal tunnel so nobody has to cross a courtyard in a bathrobe. For families who want a kitchen, the associated Family Residence Tyrol offers apartments with the hotel's service attached. It is one of the more complete mountain properties in Italy.

Childcare is where the arithmetic starts working in the parents' favor. The Koenig Pipo club runs Monday to Friday from 10.00 to 21.00, split into minis (2 to 5) and maxis (6 to 12), and it is included in the rate rather than sold back to you by the hour. A paid baby club takes children from eleven months, and a teen program runs during school holidays. Supervised children's lunch and dinner are built into the 3/4 gourmet board, which means the 5 to 8 course evening menu genuinely happens at adult pace, and the restaurant keeps separate areas for families and for couples, so you choose which room you are in that night. The water park side of things, three slides at 30, 50, and 70 meters, two separate indoor children's pools with a pirate ship and a Viking ship, a Ninja Warrior course, and a happy room full of consoles, covers the four to eight hours a day the hotel reckons children spend out of the room. The adults-only floor of saunas, plunge pools, and panorama loungers exists precisely so the other half of the day belongs to you.