There are awards for the best boutique hotel, the most luxurious and the most elegantly designed, but if there was a gong for the most tackiest then the Hotel Convento in Spain’s Castilla y Leon region would most certainly be in the running.
At least that is how one reviewer branded the hotel just outside Coreses in the province of Zamora, in a scathing review in El Mundo, after a recent stay.
Juan Diego Madueño railed at the pomposity of a ceiling mural styled on the Sistine chapel and the rather impressive if out of place replica Parthenon built in the gardens to welcome wedding parties.
The building, which dates to the 1950s and once served as a German Seminary, has been converted to include a vast array of architectural styles and decorative motifs.
A look at the website reveals that guests can enjoy a spa where they can bathe beneath plaster Doric columns under the watchful gaze of Roman Centurions.
They can feast on roasted meats in a Medieval-themed dining room or step back even further in time and imagine themselves in a pharaonic tomb in a salon plastered in hieroglyphics.
There’s a gilt embellished ‘throne room’ and a reception area in what appears to be a converted chapel complete with stained glass windows and an altar-like stage bearing an oversized image of Christ on the Cross.
But the eclectic mix is considered part of the charm by guests who rave about the hotel, which has garnered 141 ‘excellent’ reviews on travel website TripAdvisor.
“I absolutely recommend this hotel to spend a few days of total tranquillity. All the decoration of the hotel is thought to the millimeter, it is incredible, it looks like a museum,” wrote one.
Another described it as ‘magnificent’ and said: “As soon as you enter you are overwhelmed with beauty from each and every corner. It is a place where art is to be enjoyed room by room.”
Have you stayed in a quirky hotel in Spain whose charms are less than conventional? Drop us a line to newsdesk@theolivepress.es and tell us about it!
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