Merano runs on weather. This is South Tyrol, the north of Italy, with three hundred days of sunshine a year, give or take. Five degrees, ten degrees, blankets folded over the garden and balcony loungers, a glass of something warming or cold and sparkling in the hand. In summer the apricots arrive, then the apples and pears, then the grapes that cover every south-facing slope between here and Bolzano. Forty minutes in any direction puts you in the Dolomites, and getting here from the UK has just become considerably easier.
SkyAlps is the only airline flying direct from London to Bolzano, the gateway to the Dolomites and the closest landing point for Merano. The route launched from Gatwick in April 2024, and from July 2026 will increase to four flights a week, the Friday addition opening up the weekend bracket properly for the first time. The flight itself is part of the appeal. SkyAlps operates propeller aircraft that fly considerably lower than commercial jets, never exceeding twenty-five thousand feet, which means passengers see the Dolomites from a perspective rarely available on a commercial route. The lower altitude also reduces fatigue on arrival and lowers the per-flight emissions footprint. On board, hand-picked South Tyrolean wines and local snacks set the tone for what is waiting on the ground. From wheels-down at Bolzano to the front door of Villa Eden is under thirty minutes by car.
A storied retreat
Villa Eden sits on a quiet hillside above the spa town of Merano, a place of 40,000 residents that has been attracting the curious and the convalescent since Empress Elisabeth of Austria first came here in 1871. Twenty-five suites, adults only, no children, no noise, no fuss. The property began life in 1890 as two separate villas commissioned by Dutch families taking in the alpine air. In the 1970s, one family bought both buildings and stitched them together. By 1982, what they had built was the first destination spa in Italy, the project of Karl Schmid, who had made his name importing Jägermeister into the country and grown curious about the Austrian and German spa traditions of his own youth. Back then guests stayed a minimum of seven days, no exceptions.
Karl’s daughter Angelika took over in 1993. Over the past decade she has reduced the suite count from 45 to 25 and doubled the staff to eighty. Her husband Hannes Illmer came at it from a different angle, an alpine guesthouse upbringing, then Cornell, then a career consulting for international hotel groups before he joined her at Villa Eden. Together they have eased the seven-day rule, made each suite its own little world, and softened the clinical edge into something that feels like a private home with a medical clinic down the corridor.
Beyond the pampering lies a serious clinical longevity programme. Villa Eden styles itself as ‘Pioneers in Longevity’, and the phrase is well earned. A stay begins with a full diagnostic round: epigenetic testing, biological age, gut microbiome analysis, nutrigenomic profiling, oxidative stress, blood work, an ECG, a high-definition skin analysis. From these, the doctor builds a protocol around you.
There is the DripBar, where ozone and oxygen therapies are delivered intravenously. There is photobiomodulation, low-level laser therapy in four colours aimed at cellular repair and mitochondrial function. There is CellGym®, an intermittent hypoxia-hyperoxia system that teaches the body to use oxygen more efficiently. Heavy-metal chelation, biothermic treatments, mesotherapy, reflexology. The machinery is state of the art, usually only found in the Swiss clinics.
Overseeing it all is Dr Emanuele De Nobili, who came to longevity medicine via Otolaryngology, Medical Hydrology and Aesthetic Medicine and has been Medical Director here for 15 years. The newest addition under his direction is the STEM-MITO Boost, the most advanced of the property’s programmes and the one that signals where the medical thinking is heading. It works at the cellular level, combining mitochondrial and stem cell therapies with the full diagnostic round and a lifestyle plan built around your results. The aim is energy in the deeper sense, the kind that sits beneath sleep and mood and skin, and the protocol is shaped suite by suite rather than delivered off a menu.
The clinical work is balanced by movement and by hands. Yoga sits on the daily schedule, and morning power walks are led by personal trainer Mirco La Mendola through the orchards and vineyards above the property. And then there is Stefan Pichler, the property’s resident healer, whose Touch for Health sessions use gentle muscle testing to read where the body is holding tension, physical and emotional, and release it.
Out of all of this comes a science-backed skincare and body line of Villa Eden’s own, built around natural actives and only available onsite or through their e-boutique. Angelika tests every formulation herself before it is approved. Her own favourite, the Vitamin Butter, is the line’s stand-out, dense and lipid-rich, the balm to reach for in the evenings after a walk in
the mountains.
So much more than the science
What stops any of this feeling clinical is what surrounds the villa. A lush garden with views across vineyards and mountains, two outdoor pools and an indoor one. There is an infrared sauna inside near the pool, and a Finnish sauna in the garden, the latter a ‘naked sauna’ where swimwear is forbidden for hygiene reasons in the Austrian fashion of the region.
The 25 suites are large and luxurious, with private balconies, spacious bedrooms and substantial bathrooms. Many have hosted big names including Pavarotti and Barbra Streisand; you can see them all in the celebrity gallery on the way to the suites. Locally grown strawberries are waiting in your room on arrival along with orchids, herbal teas, a Nespresso machine and plenty of water. The blackout curtains, closed for you at turndown, are very effective, so set an alarm.
There are three restaurants to choose from at Villa Eden. The Detox Restaurant runs an entirely organic menu, gluten free, free of coffee and salt and added sugar and lactose, built around vegetables and fish and the principle that healthy food is still meant to be enjoyable. The Pleasure Restaurant has a menu of Mediterranean and regional South Tyrolean cooking and a wine list you would expect of a place sitting in one of Italy’s oldest pinot noir corners. Then there is The Tasting Room – four tables only, also available to non-residents who book early. Marcello Corrado, a Neapolitan listed in the Michelin Guide and named among the top 50 chefs in South Tyrol, delivers a five or eight course menu that is, on its own, a reason to visit Merano. The revered Gault & Millau guide agrees, recognising The Tasting Room as one of the top five restaurants in the region.
Quality and provenance are of paramount importance at Villa Eden, and that standard runs through the staff, the food, the treatments and the products. The apples come from down the road. The wine comes from down the road too: Castello Rametz, a few minutes away, has been in Angelika’s family for decades, and was where the first vineyards in the region were planted in 1856, including the pinot noir for which the area is now known.
Beyond Villa Eden
Five minutes on foot takes you to the botanical gardens of Trauttmansdorff Castle, where Empress Elisabeth lived and which now houses a museum dedicated to the region. In March, when the snow is still on the high passes, but the orchards are budding, you can play golf in the morning at one of two nine-hole courses laid through the vines and orchards, or 18 holes a little further on, and then ski in the afternoon. In summer there are cycling routes of 60 or 70 kilometres up into the mountains and back through villages that feel suspended somewhere between Austria and Italy.
The philosophy at Villa Eden is ‘Longevity as the Art of Living’, and what it really comes down to is what gets included into the protocol. Sunlight. Vineyards. The Dolomites 40 minutes away. Fresh food. The data and the discipline are taken seriously, but they are not the whole point. The argument is that a long and better life is built on all of this together, the test results, movement, the food and that pleasure is not the reward for the work but part of the journey.
You leave lighter. Not necessarily weight-loss lighter, though that may happen too. Lighter in the way that comes from a week spent in a place that has thought carefully about how to put you back together, mentally, physically and emotionally in a town that has been doing this kind of work, in one form or another, ever since the Habsburgs.
Further information
Suites at Villa Eden start from €750 per night. Three-day health programmes from €1,750, and seven-day health programmes from €2,950. villa-eden.com. SkyAlps flies London Gatwick to Bolzano, with frequency increasing to four flights a week from July 2026. skyalps.com
About the author
Lulu Townsend has been immersed in the world of luxury hospitality for over two decades transforming her family’s boutique property in Umbria into a Condé Nast Traveller favourite and advising global names such as The Langham Hotel. Follow her on Instagram: @lulusluxurylifestyle
