Schloss Haunsperg: A longtime country hotel treasure remains as delightful as ever

Love at first sight

In 1989, when we made our first visit to ivy-covered Schloss Haunsperg in a Salzburg suburb, the highest rating Gemütlichkeit could give a hotel was three stars, defined as a "memorable experience." Haunsperg became the first to get both our three-star rating and our "$" (significant value) designation. It also won a 1989 "G Award." We saw it as a fairy-tale castle, the very essence of gemütlichkeit: full of priceless family heirlooms and old-world charm and operated by an energetic, gregarious husband-wife team, who seemed to genuinely enjoy their guests.

Certainly the story has fairy-tale elements: patrician young couple restores old family castle that has lain moldering for decades and turns it into dreamy, movie-set hotel. Not only is the couple handsome, gracious, and charming, but they are also skilled in the business of running a hotel, with a born-to-it knack for making guests feel at home.

Many years later, much wiser in the ways of European hostelries, we returned to Haunsperg with a more jaded, critical eye. Could the place possibly be as appealing and authentically homey as we gushed way back in 1989? Is it really an idyllic hideaway, or were we just easily impressed? Could the husband and wife team possibly maintain their wonderful enthusiasm and almost unbelievable level of genuine hospitality? After all, the bed and breakfast business is notorious for turning enthusiastic inn-keepers into burnt-out cynics.