Vigilius

In its first years, the Vigilius won awards for its sustainable energy approach and introduced the idea of the eco resort to the area, setting the bar for subsequent spas’ natural material use and extreme energy efficiency.

In Italy’s Alps, the modern movement of forest spas launched with the opening of the Vigilius Resort in 2003.

The Vigilius’s glass-fronted sauna and indoor-outdoor heated pool immerse visitors in a dramatically dense view of larch trees and craggy peaks, but the resort is in need of a refresh to keep up with the high style introduced by more recent eco resorts in the vicinity.

Atop the isolated Avelengo plateau visible on a mountaintop opposite the Vigilius, the San Luis Retreat Hotel & Lodges is a collection of modern chalets and “tree houses” on stilts, all splayed on a meadow around a central lake, with hills of larch trees rising behind.

Photograph: State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg/Corbis Vigilius Erichsen is a name lost to time, but the Danish painter left a deathless portrait of Catherine the Great in a dress so spectacularly panniered she can lean one elbow upon it like a convenient shelf.