A new lease of life for mountain huts: here’s where to go even without skis

There was a time when stepping through the door of an alpine refuge meant taking off your soaked boots, huddling round a cast-iron stove with an unreliable draught, and sharing a rough wooden bench in front of a steaming bowl of soup. Today, at an altitude of two thousand metres, you might instead find yourself ordering exquisite dishes and fine wines suspended in mid-air inside a crystal cube, to relax in a wood-heated barrel-shaped tub beneath the stars of the Dolomites, or to dance to the beat of international DJ sets whilst wearing the latest trainers, without necessarily having to put on a pair of skis.