A travel story from Puradies: where family holidays are as pure and paradisiacal as life itself.
Travelling with children is a bit like taking everyday life to a different place.
And often, you end up feeling more in need of a holiday than before.
I’m no different.
So why do it anyway?
Because of all those jam-jar moments — the precious memories you wish you could keep forever.
Like the ones I was lucky enough to collect with my family this summer at Puradies.
Getting three boys aged three, four, and twelve excited about the same thing isn’t exactly easy.
But when it comes to going away, they’re all in perfect agreement — especially if there’s a pool and a few animals involved.
For us parents, that means thinking of a thousand little things first: packing, snacks, something to keep them busy on the road.
So when we realised that the boys’ clothes had somehow been left at home — because each of us thought the other had put them in the car — it turned into one of those moments you simply couldn’t plan, no matter how hard you tried.
When we arrived in Leogang, we were amazed by how suddenly the world can fall silent — just by turning off the main road and driving a little closer to the sky.
There it stood, on a high plateau: a splendid old Pinzgau farmhouse, its wings stretching gently across a lush green meadow. The view opened up to majestic mountains, a train gliding through the landscape, the soft chime of cowbells, and a cable car floating quietly in the distance. It felt as if we had stepped right into one of the children’s picture books.
Only the sun was still hiding from us. But we decided not to let that dampen our spirits.
Warm-hearted and calm, we’re greeted at check-in by Michael Madreiter, the owner of Puradies. There’s an easy kindness about him that makes us feel at home right away. We can’t help but marvel at the impressive modern bar, built from countless blocks of oak — and quietly look forward to a cocktail evening for two.
The rooms are inviting — traditional yet modern. Before we even put down our bags, the children are already arguing over who gets to sleep on the top bunk. But with that stunning view outside and the comforting thought that we won’t have to make the beds ourselves, this quarrel feels much easier to endure than it would at home.
After a few rounds of negotiation and some creative bribery attempts, they finally reach an agreement everyone can live with.
Barefoot, they run out onto the terrace, peering through the old wooden slats of the farmhouse — the youngest balancing on a tree stump — and for a brief, beautiful moment, they all fall silent.
And that’s when we feel it — this is where the real moments begin. The kind that feel just like when Grandma used to make jam: a sweet scent filling the air, a stolen lick from the spoon, and that quiet warmth spreading through your heart.
The word pool is all it takes, and the three of them dash off to change in a flash.
They slip into the delightfully oversized bathrobes and slippers — only to shed them again within minutes and leap straight into the children’s pool.
The eldest takes on the challenge of swimming across the refreshing pond without flinching once, while everyone marvels at the automatic sliding doors that lead from the large, warm pool out into the open air.
Back in the dry, runaway rabbits are chased and eggs are hunted — mostly without success. Animal sounds are imitated, and even the parents, transformed back into children, take turns testing the trampoline despite the rain.
How lovely it is to have the time for all this without a shred of guilt, knowing that the evening meal is already taken care of: the menu is prepared in advance.
The youngest is delighted that “the human” keeps bringing him juice whenever he politely asks. The middle child beams at the fulfillment of his special request for two kinds of potato — fries and mashed with a parmesan topping. And the almost-teen and the two adults wait in eager curiosity to see what the next course will bring.
The next day brings sunshine, and Puradies unfolds its full magic. It had already felt heavenly, but under the bright sky, everything seems just a little more sublime. We are truly living inside a storybook — even if we still can’t find the eggs.
Instead, the children discover a hiding spot in the room: the niche beside the bed becomes their greatest delight, a place for endless rounds of playful surprise, filled with childlike innocence.
In the meantime, the adults take turns sneaking off to the adults-only sauna house to breathe deeply and savor the view of trees and mountains, relishing those long-awaited moments of quiet.
Meanwhile, the eldest enthusiastically stays in the room with the sleeping little ones and the TV quietly humming in the background, while the parents relish the ease of a night just for the two of them.
The extraordinary cocktails at the bar are a highlight — not least because for once, they can be sipped in peace, savored fully, and enjoyed without interruption.
Later, in the darkness of night, we sneak a children’s ice cream from the freezer. With mischievous smiles, we take a quiet walk, savoring the stillness that only nighttime can bring.
It is an unfiltered holiday, tasting of sweet strawberry jam, and every now and then carrying a hint of bitter orange. Just as the cable car rides uphill and back down, as the sun shines and then the rain falls, as you find eggs in the barn — or don’t — life here is much like life itself, far from toothpaste commercials and Instagram posts: with disappointments, and even more joys.
And when the youngest talks about the “other home” back in our hometown, the middle child writes in a friendship book that his favorite place to swim is Puradies, and the eldest celebrates his “summer memories,” the parents delight not only in the photos on their phones, but in the many beautiful images etched in their minds.
photos: CWN
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