BUILT ON ROCK
Our hotel was built on its rocky outcrop by Josef Dörflinger in 1965. The Bludenz locals call this the »city crag« (“Schrofen” = another word for crag). Dominating the alpine town of Bludenz, it offers wonderful views of the Rätikon ranges and further to the mountains of Switzerland.
This rocky foundation gives us stability, making our location a very strong one.
High above the rooftops
An extract from our hotel chronicle, which we compiled together with Christoph Thöny on the occasion of the hotel’s 50th anniversary:
The land on which the Schlosshotel stands today was acquired by Josef Dörflinger in the 1950s, with the intention of building a café. His inspiration for this dream was the Grand Café Winkler on the Mönchsberg in Salzburg. Originally, a traditional rifle range house had stood on the Bludenz “city crag”. The inn which postdated it appears to have been very old, and was closely connected to the rifle range, which attracted great numbers of visitors even as late as the inter-war years. The rifle range house gained international renown in 1873, when the German and Austrian Alpine Clubs were officially amalgamated here. To this day this historical merger is commemorated by a plaque at the Schlosshotel. At the end of the 19th century the newly-founded evangelical parish of Bludenz held church services in the building. After the Second World War it had become increasingly dilapidated, as a result of which the Dörflinger family demolished the remaining parts of the building with their own hands. It was replaced by a bowling alley and subsequently a café, and these formed the foundation stones for the present Schlosshotel Dörflinger.
Text by Mag. theol Christoph Thöny | www.thoeny.eu