I love Spanish Paradores (singular parador), and similar Portuguese Pousadas (singular pousada) renovated hotels, from restored and converted castles and grand historic buildings. Inside they have period and rural furniture. Every hotel is different. The restaurants feature local food, historic characters and connections. You really feel you have 'stepped back in time', another country and as L P Hartley said in his novel, 'the past is another country'.
Visiting them, you usually are allowed to stay only a maximum of three nights. This rule is because they have few bedrooms, and the idea is to bring many tourists into each place, and each tourist to many places. In fact it's ideal if you are driving from north to south. Now I'll tell you about my motet memorable four poster picture.
It happened like this. We arrive at a hilltop hotel in an echoing stone walled building in Jaen.
I arrive at the hotel reception and ask if they have a four-poster bed. My Spanish and their English is not making a great connection on this idea. I am not clear whether they don't have a suite, a four-poster. I go through the brochure. I ask to see pictures of the rooms. Postcards of the hotel?
Eventually I am offered a folder of hotel pictures which includes the room I want. It's beyond our price limit. It had already been reserved by somebody else.
By now, after seeing several hotels around the world, I know the way of getting a room. If the people have not yet checked in, at what time will you release the room? Can I have an upgrade if the other room's occupant does not turn up? Can I pay the difference?
As well as persuading the hotel to help, I have to persuade my driving spouse to hang around whilst I haggle with the receptionist and manager and wait whilst they phone housekeeping.
I must persuade my spouse that we'd be better off having a more expensive room and spending our money on that. I argue that we can depend the same, or not much more, getting a grander room, and saving by eating out in the city. Thus I get to see and write about two places, a hotel and a restaurant. After all, I'll be trying the hotel bar for a drink, or having breakfast in their dining room tomorrow.
I'm off to my room. A lovely room. Then rushing down to dinner.
We look around the room and speculate as to who is the 'Russian' Ambassador. Not the English couple at the next table - I speak to them.
Not the couple with the two children. The mother is speaking to the children in Spanish or Portuguese. We manage to work out which language they are speaking - but in any case it's not Russian.
Maybe the Russians aren't here.
'Obviously the threesome in the corner not saying anything.'
'Those three men. Why aren't they talking?'
'Because he is the VIP. They are bodyguards. They are not there to amuse him. Their job is to watch the room to be sure he is safe.'
Hotels are very different, depending on the history of the hotel, the staff, and the guests. Some hotels won't let you into a room that's not yours in case you cause any damage. I've heard of hotels where the best man has claimed to be delivering flowers but made an apple pie bed, or held a party in the Jacuzzi and then rushed away leaving the bath overflowing running the room and half the hotel.
Nowadays security for people is much tighter. In those days, perhaps I was naive, focused on my aims and problems, taking a photo of a bed, so I was not expecting any political security for hotels and guests, only the hotel's own desire to protect their property.
After dinner I go back to the reception. Can I see the room tomorrow? Are the people checking out? If I am in the city until lunchtime, can I see the room after one group check out, before the next group check in?
Either that evening or the next morning, whilst I am again in these long negotiations with another staff threesome, junior receptionist, senior receptionist, hotel manager, another guest arrives at reception. I apologies for taking so long and explain I am trying to get a suite with a four poster but somebody already has it. I explain I am an English travel writer. The receptionist returns. Full of my own self-importance, I give the receptionist my card, and politely offer a business card to my fellow guest.
He grins. He finds me an amusing diversion.
He graciously accepts my apology. He is the part of the group occupying two of the special bedrooms. He is the 'Russian' ambassador. (Not from the parts of 'Russia' I had visited, but one of the satellite areas which were then part of Russia.) He is happy to show me the room.
My husband appears. He is not one hundred percent happy with the idea of his wife disappearing to a four poster bedroom with a VIP male. Instead of telling me I must do my photo quickly, on my own, he decides he must come with, bringing the tripod, and taking a proper photo of the city from the top floor bedroom window.
Now, finding the young lady is accompanied by a young man, meaning he is outnumbered. the Russian ambassadors points out that he cannot be alone, but must bring his two companions.
We are now a party of five. Photography means we have to keep doing a square dance so nobody appears in the photos. I don't particularly want a photo of a four-poster bedroom showing three men, three well-built men.
They are not offended. They don't want their photos taken.
We seen in agreement on this. The view from the upstairs bedroom window over the city is as delightful as the interior shot. Anybody wanting to book a honeymoon would be delighted by the views. (Any editor, even if they did not have room for all those pictures, would be confident that readers would be thrilled with the destination. Therefore they would buy my article; or look at my pictures, be impressed, ask what other places I have visited, and/or commission me to write about some other destinations.)
If you want to follow my footsteps, you can get a brochure on pousadas and a brochure on paradores, and check them out in websites and plot a route.
Spanishparadores.com
