Club Hotel Dut Bariloche

It’s such a peaceful, serene hotel, ideal for nature lovers. The location is beautiful, overlooking a lake, and the older building is still clean and well maintained.

The rooms feel dated, but they’re very well equipped. Beautiful place.

We stayed in a two-bedroom apartment, unit 1-6, with a small but efficient kitchen. I couldn’t get the oven to light, though the little gas stove let us cook meals “at home.” Wonderful. The main nighttime issue was the birds. Geese, ibis, plovers, and other birds are lovely to see during the day, but the lit grounds seem to encourage them to forage and call through the night, so they make quite a racket. The grounds themselves are lush and irrigated, right on the Brazo Campaniaro, a small inlet off the larger lake. Club Hotel Dut Bariloche is 20 km west of the cuidad, near the famous Llao-Llao (pronounced “zhou-zhou”) resort hotel. It’s a bucolic, lovely setting. Llao-Llao, 3 km west of “DUT,” is inside a large city park with pleasant trails along Lago Moreno. You can rent kayaks and SUP, and bicycles at the roundabout at 19.5 km. San Carlos de Bariloche is a spectacular destination on Lake Nahuel Huapi in the Argentine region of Rio Negro, with the Andes and beautiful alpine scenery. It’s a year-round destination, blah-blah, all guidebook stuff. Downtown is hugely schlocky and touristy, but so what? The point is being in the mountains. Take the tram up Cerro Campaniaro or go to Cerro Catedral for incredible mountain views. We hiked up Cerro Campaniaro, about a 300 meter elevation gain, guided by a pretty shepherd mix from town. The same pup turned up the next day on the beach at Lago Moreno Este, more than 4km from where we’d seen him. We figured he’d adopted us and felt priveliged. The town has lots of stray dogs, all of whom seemed healthy and well fed. Bariloche is also a hub for craft brewing, with at least four local “cerveza artesenal” brewpubs. Cervezeria Berlina, 11km west of downtown, has a lovely beer garden and solid pub food. The beers are good, not great. Don’t expect the best of NorCal or Portland. Hey, it’s beer. How bad can it be?

The service was great, and the food was really good. The wine selection could use some improvement.