Hotel Barcelo La Bobadilla

Rooms

Big, plush bedrooms give you what the price tag demands: an overdose of luxury. The feel is not cutting-edge designer chic, but something softer: smart and spacious, a place to feel at home. The smallest room we saw was large and all rooms come with a private balcony, terrace or garden, so you can throw open doors and breakfast in the sun. You get super-king-size beds, whitewashed walls, sculptures and bronzes, beamed ceilings, too.

Some rooms are designed in contemporary styles (fresh colours, clean lines, no clutter) others are more traditional, with pastel colours, big wicker chairs and padded headboards. Space is abundant, rooms get lots of light, but all have shutters to keep them cool. Standard doubles have room for a couple of armchairs, but venture into the Junior Suites and you get huge rooms with a couple of sofas, antique tables and chairs, terracotta-tiled floors. Some rooms open onto an exquisitely-tiled interior courtyard where a fountain sings (and in which the housekeeper leaves flowers floating every day). The more you spend, the more you get, and imperious top-end suites come with something to elate: a domed ceiling, a hand-carved wooden bedstead or a gigantic bathroom with views across open country.

All rooms come with a basket of fruit, a bottle of sherry and mineral water. If you want breakfast in your room it will be brought to you on a starched white tablecloth and accompanied by a vase of fresh flowers. Nothing here is done by halves and you can expect to be looked after in some style, as were Tom Cruise, Placido Domingo and the King of Spain. Bathrooms are excellent, most are huge and every tiny desire is catered for. You get robes and slippers, lotions and potions, big baths and separate showers, white fluffy towels coming out of your ears. If you’ve come in search of luxury, you’ve found it.