We are an association of distinguished historic hotels and inns in South Tyrol. We are ambassadorsof timeless hospitality.

Historic: Guests will find a library and a grand piano in your house - a symphony of peace. You do not offer a TV, but you do offer cosiness and community.

Tell me about the type of cosiness guests can experience at the Gasthof Bad Dreikirchen?

Annette: You are surrounded by natural materials here: stone, wood, metal, wool, cotton - and always fresh flowers, that is very important to us personally. Whenever nature enters the house or whenever a guest sees something that pleases their eyes, that is when this special feeling of cosiness arises.

Matthias: Two of our guests like to come to dinner barefoot. Cosiness also includes feeling the materials.

Annette: I like these old wooden tables. They are worn down to a smoothness that isn’t comparable to anything else.

Matthias: Of course, everybody has a slightly different idea of cosiness. Some guests find wood cosy; others prefer their rooms to be white. We try not to promise too much and we deliberately avoid buzzwords as not everybody associates the same meanings with them.

Annette: Our rooms are neat and simple: old furniture, panelling, select textiles. Some find that austere, others cosy. Both may please.

Matthias: This place grew slowly. Resisting certain trends is sometimes hard, especially here in South Tyrol. These things require stamina. But also legitimate self-doubt so as not to become complacent.

Annette: It has proven useful to hit the brakes whenever it came to innovations. At the same time, we take care not to turn into our own museum. It needs to be liveable. People must be able to touch and use stuff rather than treating them as precious objects we treasure.

Matthias: Let me tell you a little story about this: We have this old, silver-plated cutlery - hotel cutlery. It’s particularly pretty on our natural wood tables. I recently bought one of those from a lady in Krumpendorf, Carinthia. She had inherited it from her grandmother in 1982 and had it fixed up - only to never use it since. It lived in a case.

Luckily, the treasure is now out of the case and in use. But it’s a shame that guests never know about stories like this one.

Matthias: They shouldn’t. It should be a matter of course for them.

Annette: Then it works! Because each one of these details contribute to the whole.

Matthias: On the other hand, if it were gone, guests would notice immediately.

The Gasthof Bad Dreikirchen is landmarked. How do you handle such a historically grown structure? Do you ever expand or unbuild?

Matthias: We are facing decisions that really affect the next generation: Where is it advisable to anticipate them? Our daughter said she would rather slow down - which sounds reasonable considering the current lack of employees. We are a manageable size and have no intentions of growing any further.

Changes in the building’s outside appearance aren’t really allowed anyway, but we are fairly free to do what we want on the inside. When we open walls, we can see how people used to build in the old days. Materials were precious and difficult to transport, so a lot of improvisation happened.

Annette: We found straw mats and mortar in between, with newspapers used as insulation and filling material. This house was built on a budget, as a summer residence.

For whom and for what purpose?

Annette: It was an inn. The oldest part was created at the same time as the second of three churches that lent the village of Tre Chiese its name. That was in 1315. Initially, there was a pilgrims’ retreat on this upward route. It had stables and a barn. People crossed the area by horse and cart.

Connecting paths between north and south ran through here, there were no paths down in the valley at the time.

Nobody knows exactly why these three churches were built so closely together. It is believed that there used to be a Roman spring sanctuary in pre-Christian times. In the Antiquity, people believed that gods lived around springs. And there are loads of spring outlets on this slope.

The healing waters were first used as drinking water. Later, they had a ‘peasants’ bath’ here as was common in South Tyrol at the time. The peasant women sought recreation here between their many pregnancies¾and found kindred spirits.

Around the turn of the century, a more highbred crowd arrived. Tourism had begun; they were travellers on their way to Italy.

When did the place come into your possession?

Matthias: My family bought the building in 1811; my great-great-grandfather Ringler signed the purchase contract. The Ringlers were innkeepers in Colma who ran the Kreuzwirt, a customs station. Their daughter, Johanna Ringler, my great-grandmother, married Heinrich Settari and they purchased the Ringler estate. Settari would gift his wife one parcel of land for each of her childbirths. This way, Johanna built her empire, which includes what is today the Hotel Briol. Our inn was the first, the pre-existing building in Tre Chiese; the others followed bit by bit.

Originally, we were sold the building for half (!) a bottle of champagne and some foodstuff. The building wasn’t worth a lot back then.

But good water was - and still is.

Annette: Good water is valuable; our spring is further up in the forest. The water was attributed healing powers against women’s disorders and childlessness. My husband’s great-grandmother was the best proof that it worked, with her 15 children. (Laughs.) The spring water is said to have helped against skin disease and rheumatism, too. But at the time, it was merged with an additional, sulphurous spring.

Do these springs still feed your place?

Annette: Yes, the non-sulphurous spring still serves the entire building.

Many things seem to be in flow here. One feels a subtle form of hospitality, a lot of room for individual freedom.

Matthias: First-time guests need some guidance, of course, until they find their way, their flow. Small places like ours are often owner-run.

Annette: Many guests seek personal contact with us. The place and the building are strongly tied to us. But so are our guests. One of them devised a special stamp for the inn: It shows a triangle with the inscription ‘Tre Chiese’s writing guests’. Whether authors write about Tre Chiese or just enjoy writing here - when they fancy putting their works in our library and branding them, they may do so with this stamp. The idea is to visualise ‘the diverse thoughts hatched by those who attend this place for (inner) refuge.’

When and where is your own refuge?

Matthias: We live in Bolzano from November to April. During this time, the inn is closed. We have an entirely different life then. Since we don’t live at the same place year-round, we have to take special efforts to nurture our friendships. It is ever so easy to lose track of valley conversations over the summer season.