Parador de Bielsa

We were looking forward to a return after 19 years. The views are as gorgeous as we remembered. The hotel has been modernised, where before it was more like a hunting lodge. The hotel is now a road house, just at the end of the road. It caters to coach tours (loud Americans in this case) and families (on Saturday afternoon, three kids were allowed to run riot on the terrace). The service used to be quite personal, the bartender discussing the merits of various Spanish brandies. Now, you are lucky to find anyone to serve you in the bar. The staff are mainly having conversations among themselves. The exception to this is Olga, who worked the breakfast room. If the parador had three more like Olga, I might not be so upset. But, the thing that really upset me, and is unforgivable, is after a day in Bielsa, we came back to the hotel to find the door of our room was wide open and three builders were in the room with drills. An emergency? What about our stuff? No, they were installing a headboard, which we didn't know we needed in the first place. We had no prior notification. No one asked permission. It was an invasion of privacy. The headboard could have been installed 14 hours later after we checked out. I complained loudly at the time to reception, but when we checked out and I thought we might be entitled to compensation (also the TV never worked) no one spoke English and I've not learned to complain in Spanish. Top tip: stay in any one of the hotels in Bielsa and you will have a number of restaurants to choose from. The parador's food is very uneven: the venison (which the waiter insisted on calling "Bambi" was nice, but the linguine with manchego was inedible. I honestly can't remember any other meal I had. But, you are a captive audience and have no choice. It wasn't all bad. The room was large, modern and very quiet with wonderful views to the south and east. But, stay in Bielsa. There is a very nice walk along the river to a campsite were the owner is happy to serve you.

Great value for money. We were so pleasantly surprised when we arrived to find the rooms were brand new, fully renovated just a few months ago. The views are incredible, the dinner was good and the walks near the hotel are stunning. You are virtually in the national park with mountains all around.

A wonderful hotel that punches above its 3-star weight class. We heard enough negativity regarding the dinner service that we just elected to eat at any of the other nearby places (which were all great.) We did enjoy the breakfast at the hotel! I look forward to coming back in the autumn season for some more hiking