Great first visit to Spain

Spain | Apr 1 - Apr 16, 2024

Hotel is in a great location, within reasonable walking distance of many plazas, Real Palace and many sights. Just a block off of Plaza Mayor which has an abundance of bars and restaurants. Per reports, it is the oldest hotel in Spain. It has some dated features, but comfortable beds and rooms.

Great old piece of history, used to be a prominent resident's home.

This was a clean and modern hotel. Not as close to some of the attractions as I would have liked, but was close to shops and restaurants.

Very quaint old hotel.

This was the worst hotel I have stayed in to my memory. The rooms noted that they were air conditioned and soundproofed. Also, no minibar as was noted in our booking info. However, upon our arrival, we found the rooms were not air conditioned. The front desk told us the air conditioning would not be turned on until the end of the month of April. (However, the front desk area and breakfast area were definitely air conditioned.) Consequently, we had to open the patio windows to be able to withstand the night in the room. With the windows open, the SUPER SUPER loud street noise was unbearable with people screaming at all hours of the night and city trash, recycle and street cleaning occurring every night. Also, the room patio was shared with another room, so the security with the patio doors open was minimal. Additionally, we were traveling with another couple and we were not able to get rooms near each other. We would rate this hotel with a 1 star. Also, you should be prepared to pay a per person, per night city tax at check in which was about 75Euros for 4 people for 4 nights.

Miguel was great. He took us on a side trip to see Sentenil de las Bodegas which was an interesting town built into rock overhangs--sort of cave like. Then, he proceeded on to Ronda. During lunch, a traveling companion suffered a choking incident. He promptly took us to the hospital and assisted with translation as needed. After all was well again, he continued with the remainder of the trip without cutting anything short. That caused him to have a longer day than anticipated.

This was super fun. The staff at the Paella Club were very engaging. The meal was fun to cook and share amongst all the other participants. Plenty of Spanish cava and wine was poured throughout the evening.

I wish these self guided tours included maps and some information about the tickets that may be wanted since many attractions in Spain have limited ticket availability

This trip had a couple of issues. First, there is never enough time to really explore the old towns and feed yourself. The winey tour part of the trip was quite a bust. The bus drove us to the winery usually used and it was closed. We had to spend another hour driving to a different winery where the wine expert did not speak English and the tour guide did not have enough skill to translate the information into English for us. A couple on the tour who spoke Spanish did some translating for the group.

Private guide was great and gave us great history information.

Jennifer, our guide, did an amazing job. She provided us with so much history and cultural information to make the visit extra memorable. She also spend more time with us than specified in the trip details. She never rushed us.

Marcell was amazing at discussing the food and drink during the tapas part of the tour. We sort of ran out of time and had to ride a taxi up to the Flamenco show. The Flamenco part of the visit was in a unique cave dwelling, but it was a little cramped.

Barbara did an excellent job of providing lots of information about the old part of Seville, including some anecdotal tidbits about the various changes as power changed between the romans, moors, jews and spaniards.

The ebike, cable car and boat rides were all very pleasant. I with there had been more time to be able to explore Monjuic though. That part of the trip was very rushed and we didn't even have enough time to go in the castle.

Jorge was a terrific guide who tried to keep the group engaged by posing questions and pointing out many of the subtle architectural features of both the park and cathedral. The cathedral was not at all what I was expecting. It was such a mix of styles and architectural novelty.

Lucas was very good at providing information, but the time at Monserrat was too short to see everything desired. Need at least another hour or 2 at the monastery.