Hotel Convento Aracena & Spa

The house

A four-star hotel behind the walls of a former 17th-century convent, on calle Jesús y María, right in the centre of Aracena, a few minutes' walk from the Gruta de las Maravillas and the castle.

The convent came from the determination of sor María de la Santísima Trinidad, an Aracena woman born in 1604 who travelled to Seville to seek permits and money and worked on the building with the women of the first beaterio; she died before seeing it finished. Of the building, the cloister survives, with some of the cypresses from the nuns' time, the old church, the sacristy and enclosure turns and grilles scattered along the corridors. After the nuns left, its rooms housed a ceramics workshop that came to produce pieces for Loewe.

The rooms

There are 57, adapted to the volumes of the convent, so no two are alike: room 16 keeps a large niche from the old refectory, 56 incorporates a turn and the enclosure grilles, and 24 occupies the place where the founder's house stood. There is a single, with a 135 cm bed; a standard double, with two 105 beds; and several special doubles, among them the choir double, in the old choir, with views of the garden and the pool, the cloister double and the terrace double, plus a junior suite.

All have wifi, air conditioning, television, minibar, kettle with herbal teas, safe, telephone and a bathroom with shower or bath. The website does not publish fixed prices: they are checked by date in its booking engine.

Spa, pool and restaurant

The spa has a thermal circuit with a hydrotherapy pool with jets and a waterfall, sauna, Turkish bath, bucket shower and Scottish shower, as well as massages and rituals. It opens Monday to Saturday from 11:00 to 14:00 and from 16:00 to 21:00, and on Sundays from 10:00 to 14:00 and from 16:00 to 21:00. Outside there is a seasonal outdoor pool, and inside a free gym.

The restaurant, Huerto Nun, is in the nuns' old kitchen garden and serves mountain cooking with a contemporary outlook, with a menu organised by element in which acorn-fed Iberian pork and ham with Jabugo PDO stand out. It serves dinner every day from 20:30 to 23:30 (last seating at 22:45) and lunch only on Saturdays and Sundays, from 13:30 to 15:30, always with prior booking. Breakfast is a buffet, and the Decoro café occupies the former entrance to the enclosure, under the choir.