Hospes Palacio del Bailio travel tips and stories. Vacations ideas, cruises, spa and resorts

Understated luxury in the order of the day at Hospes Palacio del Bailio. Hidden among the narrow backstreets of the ancient city of Cordoba, the beautiful hotel is housed in a sixty-century mansion that has also served as a military headquarters and a stables.

Like many Andalucian buildings, it is set around a central courtyard in the Moorish style, this one filled with the tangy scent of citrus from the immaculately orange and lemon trees and the soothing trickle of an eighteenth-century stone fountain. As well as being stunning the hotel conceals a rare treasure: the remains of a Roman house, discovered by chance by a previous owner.

Today the remains lie underneath the five-star restaurant’s glass floor and are lit up to spectacular effect at night.

A dip in the infinity pool is the perfect antidote to the effects of the hot southern European sun. The Bodyna spa is a major feature of the hotel, part of it situated in a courtyard flanked by stone columns with a further tree spas on the lower ground floor built around original Roman thermal baths. Just a fifteen-minute walk away you will find the wondrous Cordoba mezquita, the most magnificent mosque built by the Moors and rightly deserving of its designation as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Location: Cordoba, Andalucia, Spain