Planning a trip soon to the Canary Islands? Make sure your hotel will still be standing when you get there.
The big government scandal in the Spanish paper El Pais today is that 22 luxury hotels in the Canary Islands-based town of Lanzarote have been marked for demolition, after it was discovered that town officials allowed the hotels to be built despite the plans being rejected by the high courts in 2000, based on a moratorium limiting the number of hotel rooms that could be built in the area.
At-risk hotels include Gran Melia Volcán, Princess Yaiza and Gran Castillo, as well as six hotels currently under construction. What this means is that 23 percent of the hotels on the island--as many as 15,000 beds--could be demolished, a major blow to one of Europe's most popular tourist destinations.
Got a demolition-proof hotel recommendation for the Canary Islands? Let us know.
There is nothing kitschier than a product based on cultural clichés. Bad examples that come to mind are Olive Garden, with its proliferation of brick and Mediterranean pottery; or the façade of any Taco Bell, with its phony Mexican architecture.
Luckily, Seville's Hotel Inglaterra--which means England in Spanish--doesn't fall into this category. Sure there are lots of mahogany and flower prints to be found throughout this 151-year-old, 86-room hotel, but it also manages an air of authenticity, mostly thanks to the adjoining Trinity Pub, where we recently stopped in for a drink one afternoon.
Part of what we love about Seville is its tiny cobblestone streets, the boisterous tapas bars at every turn and its consistently Moorish architecture, despite the occasional Starbucks-ian eyesore.
But all of this also makes Seville's hotels incredibly hard to spot. Without large, luminous logos to signal here is the Occidental, here is the Best Western, the hotels, on the outside, almost fade into the background.
There may be nothing the Spanish are more faithful to than God and food, and the weeks between Ash Wednesday and Easter (otherwise known as Lent) are a wonderful time to visit Seville--perhaps the one Spanish city most steeped in religious history--to experience both of those things.
Not only is this when Seville's famous Semana Santa festival takes place, it's also when about 20 hotel restaurants there offer more varied menus every Thursday through Easter. The event is called Jueves de Cuchara... y Gloria Bendita, which loosely translates to "Thursday Ladle and Blessed Glory," or at least so says Google's translator tool.
Participating hotels include the Hotel Alfonso XIII and its Restaurante San Fernando, Hospes' Las Casas Del Rey's Restaurante Senzone and Hotel Inglaterra's Restaurante La Galería, which offers a break from the regional cuisine with traditional Irish and English meals.
It seems these Sevillian chefs know devout Catholics want to get their fill of meat before abstaining on Friday, offering such dishes as stewed lentils with sausage and potatoes. Some of the hotels are offering three-course prix fixe meals that are no more than 40 euros.
Hotelesdesevilla.com will provide you with the full list of properties and contact information, though if your Spanish is rusty, you might also want to put Google's translator tool to work, as the page is only available in español.
