Close your eyes. Think of your ideal holiday hotel. Got the picture in your
head? Right: we’re willing to make a few bets about it. We bet it’s small.
We bet it’s got character. We bet it has some element of tradition and
authenticity — maybe it’s in an old building or a converted farmhouse. It
could be simple and remote, or luxurious and boutique, but it certainly isn
’t a faceless modern block.
How do we know all that? Easy: it’s what we’re all looking for. The small,
characterful hotel is the holy grail of modern holidays. The difficult part
is: how do you find them?
There are a few obvious answers. Guidebooks are one option; independent,
specialist tour operators are another; and of course, you can trawl the
internet, though many of the cutest places are too small to have websites.
But now there’s another way, and it comes from the most unlikely quarter:
the mass-market tour operators.
The likes of Thomson, Thomas Cook and Airtours are better known for selling
cheap packages to the tacky behemoths most of us are trying to avoid. Now,
though, the dinosaurs of the travel business are wising up. They’ve seen the
increasing demand for somewhere more intimate and atmospheric, and in an
effort to avoid extinction, they’re following the money ... all the way to
the door of that idyllic hideaway we’ve been looking for.
They’ve found some wonderful places — farmhouses in the Canaries, palaces in
Portugal, converted convents in Mallorca — and, as you’d expect from the
package-holiday giants, prices tend to be keen, if not exactly a steal. But
there’s a problem for hideaway-hotel-seekers: the real gems are, indeed,
hidden away. In the brochures, they tend to crop up amid dozens of bigger,
more soulless properties. So, how do you sort the wheat from the chaff?
No problem. We’ve done it for you. Here’s our selection of the best small
hotels from the largest tour operators — and not a tower block to be seen.
Enjoy.
ONE OF the first operators to recognise the trend was Thomas Cook (0870
111 1111, www.thomascook.com). Its Escape brochure — with the tag line
“Holidays with authentic and local charm” — has been going for a couple of
years, and it’s starting to reap the rewards, with bookings growing at 50% a
year.
The brochure is a little patchy — plenty of modern and undistinguished
properties have found their way in — but there are some real finds as well,
such as the Petit Hotel Forna-lutx, in Mallorca. A former convent, perched
on a hillside in a tranquil stone-built village a few miles from Soller, it
has just 10 rooms, a little pool, a terraced garden, a lounge and a reading
room. Walk off the quiet, cobbled side street, through the front door, and
you’re confronted with the fabulous view out the back, over the Serra da
Tramuntana mountains. The decor is traditional — lots of beams, tiles and
exposed stone. In short, it’s gorgeous.
Fornalutx itself is tiny, but there are a couple of good restaurants, and the
price of the holiday includes a hire car for touring the mountains or
nipping down to the beach. A week starts at £599pp, B&B, including
flights from any of 19 UK airports.
The Hotel Tejadillo is a very different prospect, but equally appealing — and,
oddly enough, another ex-convent (nuns have excellent taste). It’s an
authentic colonial guesthouse bang in the heart of old Havana, a minute from
the cathedral and a few doors down from the Museum of Contemporary Art. Go
in through the magnificent old gates and you’re in a group of 18th- and
19th-century buildings, sensitively restored and decorated with a fun, if
slightly quirky, collection of furnishings and art — copper statuettes,
cast-iron lamps, original pottery and stained-glass windows.
The 32 rooms are spick-and-span, arranged around two leafy, quiet central
courtyards. If you want to play at being Hemingway, you’re just around the
corner from his favourite pit stop, the Bodeguita del Medio; but the
Tejadillo’s own bar is pretty cool (the mojitos come recommended) and they
usually have a decent band on in the afternoon. A week starts at £655pp, B&B,
including flights from Gatwick (or Manchester, from £19pp extra);
twin-centre holidays are available if you want a bit of beach as well.
The Escape brochure also has a few fly-drive touring options, including one
dedicated to Portugal’s historic pousadas, with a
15th-century castle in Alvito, a 17th-century fortress in Setubal and a
16th-century monastery in Arraiolos. One-week trips start at £617pp, B&B,
including car hire and flights from any of 13 UK airports.
SEEING WHICH way the wind’s blowing, Thomson (0870 165 0079,
www.thomson.co.uk) has decided to get in on the act too, but it’s going
about it in its own way. To cope with the rise of the independent traveller,
the company is creating an accommodation-only “bed bank”, with about 2,000
hotels and apartments — and to make sure it has something for all tastes,
it’s adding dozens of smaller, rural properties that it hasn’t featured
before. It’s all happening right now, so many aren’t online yet: for the two
below, it’s easiest to phone.
Son Palou is a gorgeous eight-room finca on a 150- hectare country
estate overlooking Mallorca’s Orient Valley. It’s quiet, remote and rural,
and the views are astounding. The lovely old stone farm building was
renovated in 2001, and the owners, the Colom family, have farmed this land
for generations — it’s the only place in Mallorca where apple trees grow
well, though they now do so overlooking an infinity pool.
The rooms are simple and stylish: antique beds, white walls, beamed ceilings,
tile floors. It has cosy sitting rooms, an honesty bar and a billiard table.
The nearby village of Orient is remote, ancient and picturesque... but not
exactly lively: there are a couple of cafes, and you can eat fairly simple
Mallorcan cuisine in the hotel, but for anything more you’ll need to drive.
Thomson is offering it exclusively: doubles start at £75 a night, B&B.
The prize, though, goes to Quinta da Capela, near Sintra, Portugal. This one’s
a former palace, no less — of the Duke de Cadaval, if you’re interested.
Built in 1773 (though the little chapel, where mass is still said every
Sunday, is a couple of centuries older), the main manor house has seven
bedrooms, all with antique furniture, views of the distant Atlantic and a
port decanter that’s replenished daily. It’s on the posh side — it has a
pool, a gym and a sauna — but not too formal. It’s in a great spot, too:
secluded and quiet, on the edge of the Parque Natural Sintra-Cascais, with
its wooded hills and craggy coastline, but only a few miles from Lisbon, one
of Europe’s most enjoyable capitals. The bad news? It’s closed until March
next year. The good? That means you’ve got plenty of time to book — it fills
up fast. Thomson has doubles from £640pp per week.
THE MASS-MARKET operator Airtours (0870 900 8639,
www.airtours.co.uk) has its own brochure dedicated to smaller hotels, called
Local Flavours. It hasn’t quite gone for it with the same gusto as Thomas
Cook, though. You won’t find a lot of historic properties, and many are too
big for comfort — 112 rooms just isn’t small.
All the same, there are one or two finds to be had: for instance, there’s a
small selection of traditional rustic villas in Malta’s little-sister
island, Gozo, from £309pp per week, including flights from Gatwick
(departures from 10 other UK airports are available for a supplement).
THEY MAY be a rung or two upmarket from the rest, but the hotels offered by Sovereign
(0870 576 8373, www.sovereign.com) have still tended towards the big and
faceless — posh blocks, sure, but blocks nonetheless. Recently, though, it
has been actively seeking out small, quirky pro-perties to add to its main
brochures — and they’ve been going like hot cakes.
One of the best is the Hotel Rural Mahoh, on Fuerteventura, in the Canaries.
Built from volcanic stone, it’s a refurbished 19th-century country house
with nine individually named and styled rooms, plenty of antique furniture,
a good restaurant serving Canarian cuisine, and a nice solar-heated pool.
The traditional thick walls and smallish windows mean the rooms can be a bit
dark, but they’re cool when the sun is fierce outside; and while the
island’s stark, parched landscapes aren’t to everyone’s taste, you’re a
10-minute drive from the beach. It’s good value, too: a week starts at
£525pp, B&B, including flights from any of 13 UK airports.
Right at the top end, in terms of luxury and history, is the Hotel Son Brull,
in Pollensa, Mallorca. Opinions vary as to exactly how old it is — 14th-
century, 18th-century, take your pick — but the stone building feels
seriously ancient. The specification isn’t, though: they’ve gone for sleek
modern furnishings inside, and air con, DVD players, three phones and
internet connections were installed in each of the 23 rooms when it was
refurbished. It has the pool, gym, spa and tennis courts; more importantly,
it’s tucked away outside Pollensa in 30 hectares of gardens. The bar is an
old olive-oil mill that’s been incorporated into the building. Overall,
they’ve done a beau- tiful job, and designer fittings with ancient stone
walls are a surprisingly neat fit. A week costs £935pp, B&B, flying
from any of 23 UK airports.
