El Rincon Espinosa

Highly recommended. I had reason to be impressed with the management of this hotel even before I had arrived: about a fortnight ahead of my visit I received an email informing me that there would be a festival taking place in town during my stay and that there would likely be a lot of noise; if I wanted to cancel there would be no penalty. Happily, I stuck to my plans. El Rincon is very obviously a long-established hotel (centuries ?) which has recently been renovated. The renovation is tasteful: the ground-floor bar area seems to have been simply tidied-up with a rub of sandpaper and a coat of varnish; the restaurant on the first floor has been redecorated in a deliberately unfinished way (this is hard to explain properly: what I mean is that some of the walls have been repainted to deliberately look ‘slightly distressed’ so as not to be overly glossy and out of character with the building. Trust me: it’s tasteful.) And upstairs the bedrooms are all decorated and equipped in a modern style, so much that one might forget that it’s an old building. They don’t serve breakfast; this isn’t a problem since there is a very good café next door. I had my lunch and my dinners at the hotel. The cuisine is simple, traditional and prepared with care. Excellent value. The menu del dia was 15 euros (3 courses, with wine and water included). I stayed 2 nights and would have happily stayed twice as long had my schedule allowed it. Everyone working at the hotel was nice and obviously took a professional pride in their work. The town is an excellent base for cycling (Puertos de Lunada, Picon Blanca etc).