10 Spanish Monastery Hotels

Phil Scott February 28, 2007

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Yet despite adding restaurants and swimming pools, paradores cling to their relaxing, monastic charm. They tend to be out-of-the-way -- cloistered, you might say -- and cozy. Monforte de Lemos, a hilltop monastery overlooking the town’s red roofs in the northwest region of Galicia, has only 50 rooms, and it’s one of the larger ones.

But once in a while you’ll find a parador as grand as a classic opera house. The elegant 226-room Parador de Leon in Spain’s Basque region is just such a place—a 16th-century Renaissance structure with magnificent cloisters overlooking gardens and a 300-foot facade with carvings depicting religious and historical events. On her hiking tour through Basque country, Catherine Merolle, a magazine production director in New York, stayed here. “With all the tapestries and paintings, and the wonderful architecture, I felt surrounded by history, luxury and peace,” she said.

Still, staying at a parador is not all about Gregorian chants and quiet reflection (though at Parador de Santo Estevo, near the Portuguese border, you can meditate on sangria at the bar inside the cloister). At the Parador de Chinchon, southeast of Madrid, things can get rowdy: the plaza faces the Plaza Grand and on summer Saturdays is used for bullfighting.

But even with the noise, the charm of the paradores is obvious. “Paradores are the exact opposite of these new hotels in Dubai,” said Merolle. “They’re very charming, and the ambience is very authentic. That’s what I go to Spain for.”

See our slideshow of 10 Spanish Monastery Hotels.

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