PARADOR

We had a lovely meal here, which lived up to expectations. It was our first visit to a Parador, and I was surprised at how modern the whole place was; we'd expected a renovated, modernised palacio, not a complete rebuild. That aside, I'd recommend the food heartily. We had hake and monkfish, followed by a stunning cheesecake and the local speciality of Soboa, a type of sponge cake. We drank (very) local wine which was pleasant. The service was charming and very patient with my patchy Spanish. Before or after eating, it's worth a walk along the tidal river, the Ason, which is part of the local wildlife reserve.

This is a lovely solid old fashioned Spanish hotel - the staff are all super polite and many speak English which really helped us out. It’s calm and cool and set in lovely hillside grounds. There’s a problem with noise in the rooms on first floor above the restaurant. You can hear scraping chairs on the tiled floor constantly… early morning snd late at night. Do not accept a room on floor 1. They kindly moved us to the 3rd floor after a few nights of our 6 night visit. The breakfasts were excellent- great coffee and other drinks, and a huge display of fresh and top quality buffet foods and foods cooked to order. The food at breakfast was best we have ever had in a Spanish hotel. Utterly amazing. and plentiful. We paid 10E to park at the hotel outside because the lower parking area seems a long walk away. The swimming pool Is also located down the hill - seems very non-attached to the actual parador building. We didn’t use it at all. There is air conditioning in the lovely large bedrooms- really spacious but still noisy above and to the sides with tiled floors everywhere. Super clean everyday and great quality bedding and towels. I’d very much like to visit again. Limpias is very small town- nothing much here at all. We had visited for the eclipse in northern Spain coast.

Easy distance from Santander ferry port. Parking depends on booking and is advised if you have mobility issues. But there's also free parking on site lower down by the swimming pool. Our room overlooked the lovely gardens. Evening meal good but usual paradore issues for vegetarians trying to find a dish that doesn't include meat or fish. Now one issue in that the fire alarm went off briefly twice at 3am due to 'a fault in the system' so if that happens again it really needs to be sorted out. Otherwise a good stay.