Hotel Posada Santa Maria la Real

We stayed for one night en route to Santander, and chose the hotel as it was conveniently en route. We paid €77 for B&B. Great buildings, really interesting and lots of history with friendly staff. Nice easy walk to the nearby dam if you want some fresh air. We ate in the restaurant for dinner, opting not to walk into town. The food was good and would have been cheaper had we chosen the set menu for €15, rather than selecting a la carte options. Little bits would have helped out the meal, like mint sauce with the lamb, and our dishes contained no vegetables. Breakfast was fine, no complaints. Other than hand alcohol gel and mask requirements, we didn’t see much in the way of covid cleaning. The dining tables were “cleaned” with furniture polish. The biggest concern was around our room (20). Fairly basic, weirdly we were given it for unnecessary disability access. It was a twin room and the bed bases were noisy, creaking loudly every time you turned over. However, that noise was nothing compared to our neighbours in room 21. We could literally hear every word they said, even when clearly whispering carefully in bed. They arrived into the room at 22:30, with a screaming/shouting 4-5 year old. And just didn’t stop having loud conversations until after 12:30am. Our ear plugs didn’t dull the noise at all, they may as well have been in our room. And they completely ignored our requests for them to quieten down. We mentioned the thinness of the walls to reception the following morning, and although he was apologetic, he said the whole place was the same. It’s not somewhere we’d stay again solely for that reason. Sleep is very important!

Lovely building, quirky but soundproof between bedrooms was non existent. I could hear every word from the next bedroom! I sent a text message to our friends next door bedroom, heard it delivered and heard them read it out! Food was excellent but rather late opening 8.30 pm for us!