A Hotel Meets a Thermal Spa, with a Glacier as the View
While the streets shimmer with heat elsewhere in summer, up here you swim in a glass-walled rooftop pool with a glacier right in front of your eyes. Officially, it’s called a “coolcation,” but for us, it’s simply one of the reasons why TAUERN SPA Zell am See – Kaprun has become one of our new favourite spots.
Add to that a 127-metre slide, ten saunas, and a gourmet restaurant. The result is a family hotel with a pool that never had to choose between relaxation and fun.
Location
Kaprun sits in Salzburg’s Salzburgerland, nestled between the Schmittenhöhe, Kitzsteinhorn and Lake Zell, an hour’s drive from Salzburg and under 200 kilometres from Munich. Anyone struck by a sudden craving for mountains on a Sunday can still set off Friday evening.
Getting there works well without a car too: Kaprun train station is two kilometres away, bus line 660 stops right at the spa entrance, and with the Zell am See-Kaprun Card, guests travel free on public transport throughout their stay.
The property
From the outside, the building looks clean and modern, with plenty of glass and not a hint of Alpine kitsch, and even on the drive up, the glass Skyline Pool catches your eye, seeming to float on the rooftop. Then comes the surprise inside: glass fronts run through almost every room, so the glacier world of the Hohe Tauern joins you while swimming, while relaxing in the sauna, even at breakfast. We like to call this nature as the main event, since you find yourself glancing out the window far more often than at your phone.
The spa’s water and sauna world spans over 20,000 m², yet nothing ever feels crowded. Even when day-spa guests join during the day, you’ll almost always find a quiet pool or a free lounger. The water stays pleasantly warm, reaching up to 34 degrees in some spots.
Right at the top, on the third floor, sits the Skyline Pool itself, reserved for guests aged 15 and up, with a view that briefly makes you forget you’re swimming rather than flying, and its own drinks and snack station for a break in between. Anyone travelling with younger children will find, on the second floor at the Hotel Spa Gletscherblick, an equally spacious panoramic pool of their own, with exactly the same view, just with splashing instead of silence.
Kidstein children’s spa
Now for the part that instantly widens kids’ eyes. Kidstein is a dedicated children’s area, indoors and out, entirely devoted to water. Inside, a 127-metre tube slide delivers a whitewater-rafting feel complete with light and sound effects; outside, a further slide, nearly ten metres long, leads into the activity pool, a good 164 square metres and no deeper than hip height anywhere.
A grotto with a bubbling floor, a rain shower and small spray jets turn the children’s adventure pool into a place kids happily linger in for hours, while the littlest ones splash separately in the indoor toddler pool or in their own outdoor toddler pool. A sandpit, a craft room and a children’s cinema take care of the breaks in between, and anyone done with splashing about can instead burn off energy on a climbing frame, or snuggle up with the whole family on the wide loungers in the new relaxation area. Whole afternoons easily disappear here.
SPA water & sauna world
Anyone needing a break from the water will find ten saunas and steam baths spread across the building, from the Alpine herb sauna to the alpine meadow bio-sauna, alongside panoramic saunas overlooking the three-thousand-metre peaks. Anyone wanting to stay active will find a fitness area overlooking the greenery, and anyone who’d rather do absolutely nothing can book a treatment at the Alpin Vital SPA. Honestly, though, the sauna and the view outside are often more than enough.
Rooms
For families, there’s a wide range of room configurations here, from spacious rooms for everyone together to connecting categories, for parents and kids who’d rather sleep door to door than bed to bed. All rooms, incidentally, were redesigned in 2026.
If we could recommend one room for your visit, it would be the Panoramazimmer Gletscherblick Plus. At 48 square metres, nobody’s stepping on anyone else’s toes, with a mountain view that stays with you from bed in the morning and from the balcony in the evening. Bathrobes for both grown-ups and kids come included, along with a minibar that’s always kept stocked.
For rainy days, there’s the new Kids Lounge, with a drawing and reading corner, a pool table and table football, plus a well-stocked bookshelf.
Food
The day starts at the Lichtblick restaurant with freshly made omelettes, regional cheese, fruit and freshly pressed juices. In the evening, a buffet follows, with a main course of your choice, and in between, the Genussallee in the spa area keeps anyone fed who gets hungry between two slide runs, while the hotel bar stays open late too.
Fussy eaters still find something they like at the buffet, without parents having to compromise on quality. And for a special evening for two, there’s FinESSEN, the property’s gourmet restaurant, awarded two toques. A proper date-night restaurant in the middle of a family holiday, now that’s rare.
Surroundings
Around Kaprun, it’s genuinely hard to choose, since a glacier, reservoir lakes, a gorge and a lake are all within easy day-trip reach. E-bikes are available right at the property, and during school holidays, the in-house holiday programme kicks off with over 100 summer expeditions, from rafting, canyoning and climbing to sunrise tours with glacier views and treasure hunts in the national park. With the Zell am See-Kaprun Sommercard, many of the region’s mountain railways come free of charge.
Kaprun’s high-mountain reservoirs
At around 2,000 metres lie the Mooserboden and Wasserfallboden reservoirs, turquoise against a backdrop of three-thousand-metre peaks. A dam tour shows children the inner workings of a barrage, and the children’s nature trail “Tobi Turbi” explains along the way, in a playful manner, how nature and engineering work together here. A place where kids learn without ever noticing they’re learning.
Kitzsteinhorn & Maiskogel
From the village of Kaprun, a continuous cable car connection leads straight into the glacier area, with the Gipfelwelt 3000, at 3,029 metres, as a year-round destination. For younger children, the Maiskogel is the real star: a playground at the mountain station and the year-round toboggan run “Maisi Flitzer” at the valley station. A mountain that knows exactly who it was built for.
Sigmund-Thun-Klamm & Lake Zell
Just a few kilometres away, the Kapruner Ache stream has carved its way through the rock over thousands of years. Secured wooden walkways make the gorge easily walkable even with younger children. At Lake Zell, lidos, stand-up paddling and boat trips await, along with the Schmittenhöhe, offering a 360-degree view of over 30 three-thousand-metre peaks, a panorama that makes even short hikes with kids well worth it.
