Vila Planinka

Style

Timber land

Setting

Alpine valley highs

For an antidote to fast-paced urban life, forest-fringed Vila Planinka in Zgornje Jezersko is the only prescription you need. Offering a revitalising dose of nature, this three-storey Alpine stay (more chalet than villa) has been built in local spruce and larch, laced with regional art and handmade furniture, and sugar-coated with a panoramic outdoor terrace and top-notch restaurant. Its superb, Slovenian cuisine is best taken on an empty stomach, washed down with fine wines from the hotel’s tour-of-the-country cellar. Doctor’s orders are to while away your days outdoors, exploring the unspoilt expanse of the Jezersko Valley.

Facilities

Rooms

23, including four suites.

Checkout

11am. Earliest check-in, 2pm. Both are flexible, subject to availability.

More Details

Rates include buffet breakfast. Two-night minimum stay, Thursday to Sunday.

Also

The hotel has one wheelchair-accessible room; there’s a lift at the hotel and the restaurant and lobby are at ground level.

Free Internet Access

Laundry

On-Site Restaurant

Room Service

Spa

At the Hotel

Bikes to borrow (free), electric-bike hire. In rooms: free WiFi (optional), TV, backpack, minibar, free bottled water, Renčelj bath products.

Our Favourite Rooms

All rooms are beautifully appointed with modern Alpine interiors, local art and handmade curios – but with views this good, it’s worth investing in a room with a balcony; the dual aspect offered by corner rooms and suites is also hard to resist. The capacious corner deluxe apartment is a showstopper, with a kitchen, dining space and broad, wooden balcony. Different room types come with either a bath or shower, worth identifying before you make up your mind.

Spa

The spa is a wood-lined retreat with Finnish and infrared saunas: it’s usually booked for exclusive use (for up to four), allowing for massages beside the sauna (there’s no dedicated treatment room). This modest space looks out into the woods, so when the sauna gets too much you can step out into forest-fringed serenity to cool down. In-room massages can also be arranged.

Packing Tips

You’ll want practical clothing that runs the gamut from hiking gear to bike-appropriate threads to ski kit if you’re planning cross-country forays.

Also

For a small charge you can order breakfast in bed. The hotel can arrange VIP tours and trips that impress in their variety and attention to detail, from stargazing to guided hiking to cave visits and trips to Bled.

Children

Over-12s are welcome at Vila Planinka. Extra beds (€45) can be added to some rooms.

Gallery

Food & Drink

Top Table

The six-seater table between the hotel’s peak-framing picture windows and the lobby’s wood-burning stove put you at the heart of the restaurant.

Dress Code

Mountain casual is fine, although switching base layers for a slightly dressier top or shirt is equally acceptable.

Hotel Restaurant

Don’t be fooled by the simple wood-and-stone décor of Vila Planinka’s dining room – this is fine mountain cuisine, Jezersko style. To say that chef Jernej Kamič is inspired by local ingredients is evident in every prettily presented plate, be it lamb with celeriac steak and confit shallots, steak tartare with buckwheat popcorn and leek mayonnaise or the made-in-house bread which uses locally milled flour. Traditional Slovenian dishes such as potika (a rolled pastry dessert) and porridge-like masovnek have been reinvented with finesse and pair pleasingly with the restaurant’s 160-bottle selection of all-Slovenian fine wines. Four, five and seven course tasting menus present tantalising tours of the country in food form.

Hotel Bar

To one side of the dining room, you’ll find a counter bar where sommelier Marko Koren holds weekly wine tastings, showcasing the highlights of the hotel’s cellar of fine wines, including a good selection of biodynamic orange wines from the country’s south-west.

Last Orders

The bar and restaurant are open all day until 10pm.

Room Service

A selection of dishes from Jernej Kamič’s menu is available during restaurant hours.

Planes

Ljubljana’s Jože Pučnik airport is 40 minutes by road from the hotel. Graz and Trieste airports are each around two hours’ drive from the hotel, too, or Zagreb is two and a half hours away. The hotel can arrange private transfers from/to Ljubljana airport from around €60 each way.

Trains

An hour’s drive from the hotel, Ljubljana train station has cross-border services to Trieste, Vienna and Munich (sleeper service).

Automobiles

Roads are well maintained and signposted and traffic is light (away from the capital), so if you don’t mind the mountain roads, self-drive is a safe option and there’s free parking in front of the hotel.

Worth Getting Out of Bed For

Hiking and biking trails ribbon the Jezersko valley – a biscuit tin-worthy beauty, edged by the soaring Kamnik-Savinje Alps, which draws visitors with a love of the outdoors and a thirst for peace and fresh air. The hotel offers ‘pick-your-peak’ guided hikes, or more gentle forays to Planšarsko Jezero lake (where you can also ice skate in winter), via traditional farms and the source of local spring water. On a night trail under the stars, a mountain guide takes you stargazing on a nearby peak. Guided climbing and via ferrata can also be arranged. Try your luck with a morning spent fishing; in winter, the skiing tends to be cross-country or ski mountaineering with no lift infrastructure or downhill pistes here. For adrenaline highs, take a VIP tour of the Postojna cave system, exploring its narrower reaches, cave dunes and subterranean lakes; there may be abseiling involved… Ground-level adventure doesn’t come more cobweb-clearing than cycling through the forest on dedicated bike trails. The hotel can arrange half-day trips further afield to Bled or Ljubljana.

Earn or Redeem Points with World of Hyatt

This Mr & Mrs Smith hotel participates in the World of Hyatt loyalty program. As a member, you can earn and redeem points and enjoy exclusive benefits for qualifying nights. .