Parador de Alarcon

Excellent hotel in a castle. Nice service and food. A great improvement to paradors since we stayed in them ,hopefully the rest are as good as this one .

The hotel is located in an ancient castle and is very picturesque but sadly lacking in amenities. The room was minute; so small that it could barely accommodate a double bed, with no room for any chairs. This lack of sitting room was exacerbated by the fact that there is no lounge or other communal sitting place where one can sit and read. There are outside tables in the courtyard but these form part of the bar/cafeteria. The staff are very helpful and obliging and the food is excellent.

This impressive building is well worth visiting for the history alone. The views from the rooms are minimal but from the ramparts they are breathtaking. The staff are friendly and helpful, especially the receptionist and the waitress at dinner. However, the accommodation itself is pretty basic and the mattress was hard as nails! Not a good nights sleep. The cleanliness was not up to the standard we would usually expect from a parador (we have stayed in many). Dirty lift, Coffee splashed up the wall in our room, dust all around the bed. It can’t be easy to keep a castle clean but I’m sure I could do better. The food in the restaurant was also below parador standard in my opinion. The hot pate/mash & cod tapas were just unappetising. The roast lamb would have been delicious but for the bland, tasteless gravy it was covered in. Maybe we just chose badly ‍♀️. The service was good though considering the lovely waitress was rushed off her feet. Until the above points are addressed we would not stay again.