Casona Palacio Garcia Quijano

The rooms lack the minimum services, small bathrooms, very old mattresses, poor functioning. Breakfast scarce and of poor quality. The disproportionate price for the service of a pension.

Although part of a chain, it feels like a one-off hotel, with large comfortable rooms and extremely effective shutters on the windows (i woke up "in the middle of the night" to discover it was 9:15 in the morning!). Decent breakfast and reasonable eateries within a short walking distance, and attractive grounds. Parking is in an adjacent public parking area. A good base for nearby paleolithic cave sites. At the time of writing (16/9/2020) Tripadvisor is flagging this hotel as "temporarily closed" -- it isn't.

Can't give it 4 stars as it has no restaurant, just a breakfast bar. Having said that, we recommend wholeheartedly the Meson/Rincon de las Vinas, a 5-6 minute walk away. But there will be days when you wish you could just stroll downstairs to dinner, and here you can't. But having a restaurant as well would mean running two businesses. Here they can concentrate on running just the one business, the hotel, and do it extremely well. A beautiful building, set in pretty gardens (although they could get rid of the weeds round the fountain in the entrance courtyard . . .) Our room was very large, with a four-poster bed and a bath. Yes, a big bath in the bedroom! There was another bath with a shower head in the beautifully clean bathroom. Very well furnished, as was the whole building, with lots of pretty decorative touches. Both inside and out there are a number of attractive places to sit and read, including a small gazebo by the small pool. It can be tricky getting there, try to avoid going through the tiny village of Tarriba with its narrow streets. Stay on the CA170a until you get to the church at San Felices de Buelna, then turn down the road by the side of the church. A right or left turn, depending which way you are arriving from, north or south. There is no on-site parking, but next door is a public carpark used by visitors to the old folks' home and the park and picnic area. In a rural location, leaving your vehicle in a public carpark is a different kettle of fish from leaving it in a town, and this is definitely a low-crime rural area! We really liked this hotel, it is now our number one favourite when arriving at Santander.