One for the kids

Nestling deep in the Austrian Alps is a five-star hotel for children - which, as Ronan McGreevydiscovers, also proves to be a haven for parents

IT IS THE two-metre-high plastic animal dressed in lederhosen that signals we have arrived at our destination. "There it is," my wife exclaims, peering through the gloom of a foggy Alpine night at what she sees as a giant teddy bear on the roof of a hotel. Having being led astray by an errant satnav and driven for five hours up precipitous mountainside and down heart-stopping slope, it is a sight for a bleary-eyed traveller.

The bear turns out to be Fridolin the Fox, the mascot of Hotel Alpenrose, in the Austrian village of Lermoos, which has stunning views of Zugspitze, Germany's highest mountain.

Hotel Alpenrose is a Kinderhotel, or children's hotel, part of a string of independently owned establishments in Austria and, to a lesser extent, Germany. It is for children with parents, not for parents with children.

As it goes, Hotel Alpenrose is one of the best. The reasons are immediately apparent. Would we like something to eat? Would we what? Within half an hour a giant platter groaning with all manner of cheese, fruit and meat is sent to our room. It is more than we can possibly eat. This will become a pattern.

The Kinderhotel concept is so brilliant that you wonder why it is not universal. It recognises that family holidays are often an oxymoron, especially for frazzled parents with young children, who are usually too busy amusing, soothing or saving their kids from disaster to enjoy the holidays themselves.

Our hotel provides all manner of diversions for children - and, more importantly, provides supervised childcare for about 12 hours a day. It also has indoor and outdoor swimming pools, two paddling pools, a pirate room (with a galleon to explore), swings, slides, bouncy castles, a cinema showing children's classics (dubbed in German, unfortunately), a theatre, pony riding, a racetrack and an indoor football pitch. Teenagers have a pool table, video games, table football and videos.

At Hotel Alpenrose's baby club it is a momentous occasion when we leave our one-year-old daughter with a stranger for the first time, but the very friendly and English-speaking Claudia reassures us, and when we return to collect our daughter she is buried in a ball pool, content and seemingly oblivious to our disappearance.

They think of everything here. Every family is allocated a table, which in our case has a high chair and a carefully folded bib. Each family is also given the option of a portable phone that connects to a baby monitor in the room. The phone will ring automatically in an emergency.

At breakfast a "morning mail" is delivered to our table - our version is in English - detailing the day's events. A typical day begins with a club dance with Fridolin, a nature walk, aqua fitness sessions, a football tournament, pony riding and exploring. It's not a hotel for layabouts.

Parents' diversions include the hotel's upmarket spa, where German and Austrian families, often with teenagers in tow, follow each other from steam room to sauna. (Can you imagine an Irish family doing the same?) A typical day for adults might include golf, a hiking tour that takes advantage of Lermoos's stunning location, a workout, Pilates and canyoning.

The price of the holiday includes everything except alcohol. The food, like everything else here, is inexhaustible. The hotel likes to call attention to its 40m breakfast spread, but its selection of deserts is even more impressive. Think of every strudel, gateau, trifle, shortcake and pudding that you can, plus a few more that you can't, put a chocolate fountain in the middle and you are getting closer to the approximate range of temptations involved.

Such luxury and attention to detail do not come cheap. When we were there, during the summer peak, the cheapest rate for two adults and two children was about €360 per night - roughly €130 for each adult and €50 for each child - although you could pay a multiple of that for some rooms.

The patrons were mostly prosperous and healthy-looking German and Austrian couples with their equally healthy-looking children. There were also a few English couples, and the hotel hosted a raucous party of 25 Irish adults and their children last St Patrick's Day.

Either side of the summer peak the hotel offers a week for two adults and two children for €1,800. For an all-inclusive five-star hotel that offers a spa, child-minding and amusements, €260 or so a night begins to sound like a bargain.

A Kinderhotel will give you what you pay for - which, in the case of this one, is a hell of a lot.

* Ronan McGreevy and family were guests of the Austrian National Tourist Office

* www.kinderhotels.co.uk. Winter deals include, at Dilly's Wellness Hotel, seven nights for two adults and a child for €1,419. The four-star Löwe Bär is offering a skiing package for two adults and two children, with full board, ski passes and lessons for €2,732, from January 10th to January 24th. The Familienparadies Neubichler-Alm is offering a package from February 28th to March 29th, from €879 for two adults and a child to €1,239 for two adults and two children up to the age of six

A second take on Kinderhotels

THE FIRST CHARACTER we meet at Babyhotel, in the Austrian town of Trebesing, is a giant kangaroo. Hubsi Hu (right) is plastered all over the shuttle bus that picks us up from the train at Spittal.

The two- and three-year-olds are unfazed. Their parents, on the other hand, are somewhat overwhelmed. Gone is the illusion of a cool travelling family unit. We get in quickly. We try to decide whether we love or hate Hubsi Hu.

Here's what we like about the hotel: The extensive lawns are strewn with colourful apparatus, including a bouncy castle, go-karts, swings, slides, tree houses, sandpits, carousels and a rip wire.

At children's lunch and dinner, four or five options are offered, including soup, pasta, rice and meat dishes, pizza, potatoes and a selection of vegetables and salads. Chicken nuggets and fish fingers feature only once or twice during our stay. Always available are organic baby foods and formula, juices, fizzy drinks, plenty of fruit and bread and, for dessert, ice cream or rice pudding and semolina.

The shared experience between parents and children in a place where there's no need to apologise for your child.

The daily programme of events, with activities for families to enjoy together and separately. Ours include a 15km cycle around Millstätter lake with children in tow.

A three-kilometre fairy-tale walk, or Märchenwandermeile, that skirts idyllic Alpine meadows, meanders through the forest and across the longest hanging bridge in Austria. It's an ideal buggy route, peppered with stops to read fairy tales, meet witches (complete with bubbling cauldrons), have a quick whizz down a slide or play a puzzle.

Every day begins with a gentle song-and-dance gathering of children with Hubsi Hu and Smiley. The littlers love it.

Child-minding staff assigned to face-painting duty one afternoon have diplomas in art, we discover. Arts and crafts activities include making sand pictures, paper kites and photo bags, and painting stones.

We paid about €3,700 for a 12-night stay in the smallest family suite. Taking into account all meals and beverages, child-minding and activities, it seems good value.

Here's what we didn't like: Our room is less a mini apartment and more a parents' room with a tiny bunk-bedded children's annex. There are a few hazards, including surprisingly sharp corners on window sills and beds, and small steps between rooms. It isn't long before our two-year-old joins a group of staggering, sprinting toddlers sporting bumps and bruises on their heads. Deirdre Veldon

Go there

Lermoos is within relatively easy driving distance of three airports, one of which is in Austria and two of which are in Germany. Aer Lingus (www. aerlingus.com) flies from Dublin, Cork and Belfast to Munich (about 150km from Lermoos) and from Dublin to Salzburg (about 220km from Lermoos). Ryanair (www.ryanair.com) flies from Dublin to Salzburg and Friedrichshafen (about 190km from Lermoos).

Go prepared

Tinytotsaway (www.tinytots away.com) addresses one of the most common concerns of parents holidaying with under-twos: the availability of familiar baby products. The site lets parents order milk, food, nappies, toiletries and more; it then delivers them to their hotel or apartment in any one of more than 90 countries.