If you haven’t entered any dates, the rate shown is provided directly by the hotel and represents the cheapest double room (including tax) available in the next 60 days.
Prices have been converted from the hotel’s local currency (EUR276.82), via openexchangerates.org, using today’s exchange rate.
Heavy investment has been put into turning Granada’s former Rodríguez Acosta bank into luxurious stay Palacio Gran Vía, a Royal Hideaway Hotel, although only the hefty vault doors behind glass and preserved row of teller kiosks are signs that it wasn’t actually a palace from the get-go. Its riches are many: a soaring central patio, Alhambra-esque decorative tiling throughout, sweeping wooden staircases, reclaimed Moorish ceilings, floral stained glasses and more. And – credit where it’s due – the update has brought a roof terrace with invaluable views, rooms with modern comforts and service that’ll make all guests feel high net worth.
Smith Extra
Get this when you book through us:
A bottle each of locally made Alhambra 1925 beer and a selection of local cured meats. For vegetarians there are a selection of homemade dips, and regañás (Granadian breadsticks).
Noon, but flexible, subject to availability and a charge. Earliest check-in, 2pm.
Prices
Double rooms from £260.77 (€305), including tax at 10 per cent.
More details
Rates don’t include breakfast (usually €25 a person) but guests get a welcome lemonade or fruit tea on arrival.
Also
One room is adapted for guests with reduced mobility, and there’s a step-free side entrance and two lifts to all floors.
At the hotel
Roof terrace with solarium, gym, hammam, library lounge, charged laundry service, concierge, and free WiFi. In rooms: TV, Nespresso coffee machine, tea-making kit, minibar, air-conditioning, bathrobes and slippers, and Rituals bath products.
Our favourite rooms
Unless you’re watching a Kubrick movie, hotel corridors aren’t normally something to shout about, but each floor here has a different style of gloriously colourful and detailed tiling. And more nods to the Alhambra are found in the room names, with each named after a flower you’ll find in the complex’s lush gardens. Each is elegantly outfitted, but we like the Suite, which hoards more original features than most and has the city’s knack for flair; it has a gallery with stained-glass windows, an ornate ceiling, flouncy mouldings and more. And the Deluxe Room with Balcony gives you dual-aspect views of the Gran Vía.
Poolside
Tucked away in the original stone vaults there’s a surprisingly big heated pool with hydro-massage jets.
Spa
The exposed brick and stone of the original vaults in the hotel’s basement keeps the space cool, but things get steamier in the hammam and Turkish bath hidden down here, and there’s a cosy room for the hotel’s on-call masseuse to ply their pampering. And yoga classes are sometimes held on the rooftop.
Packing tips
Download the Barceló app before arrival and you can check-in speedily and order pillows, massages and room service.
Also
Look above the grand staircase and you’ll be wowed by an intricately carved and configured wooden ceiling that pre-dates the building, having been painstakingly repurposed from an antique Moorish house.
Children
Children are welcome to stay and there are interconnecting rooms and baby cots to borrow. There are no dedicated activities or kit, but babysitting can be arranged on request (must be booked five days in advance).
Sustainability efforts
The Palacio was formerly the Rodríguez Acosta bank, built in 1905 (although ‘palace’ feels a more fitting title). Before renovation began, a historian was called in to log all the original features for safeguarding, and so the delightful Moorish tiling, grand wooden staircase, stained-glass windows, wooden teller kiosks and much more have been preserved throughout. Recycling is also duly followed to Granada’s – very precise – specifications, and food is largely locally sourced.
Why do you think Granada has so many miradors? Because this beguiling city looks great from above, so hit the roof terrace at every opportunity. Or, on rare chilly days, sequester yourself away with a drink in the library lounge.
Dress Code
Coat yourself in Alhambra-esque patterns.
Hotel restaurant
As tempting as breakfast in bed is, you should allow at least one morning for taking it in the hotel’s spectacular central patio – a soaring space where a multitude of pendant lights hang from a glass ceiling, surrounded by stained windows, palms and arches, tiles and stuccos. A row of original bank-teller kiosks, now glazed in, runs along one side. Alongside a Continental buffet, there’s a live cooking station where you can tell the chef how you like your eggs. And La Sucursal Grand Café is a wood-panelled and swagged space for cured meats and cheeses, seabass or sirloin to share, stacked sandwiches and sweets.
Hotel bar
The Palacio has the privilege of one of the best views in Granada, running along the Gran Vía, over the Albaícin neighbourhood and cathedral, out to the Alhambra, and into the hills beyond the city. And, it extends this to its guests in generous fashion at the Miralba rooftop bar – between decorative miradors, loungers line the edge of the solarium, deckchairs are dotted about, and tables are shaded by fringed canopies, where you can tan and sip simple yet effective cocktails (like the Sherry Mule with homemade brandy, orange and ginger soda), local brew Alhambra beer, classic apéritifs (vermouth, Campari), and Spanish wines while getting the lay of the land. Sometimes Andalusian wine-tasting sessions are held too.
Last orders
Breakfast is from 8am to 11am, and the Grand Café’s menu runs from 11.30am to 11pm.
Room service
Dine in your room 24 hours a day on jamón and tomato bread, selections of regional cheeses, soups, sandwiches, burgers, simple pastas, steak, smoothies, and sweet treats. Continental breakfast can be had in bed too.
Palacio Gran Vía, a Royal Hideaway Hotel is superbly central in Granada, on its main drag Gran Vía de Colón, practically nose-to-nose with the cathedral.
Planes
Federico García Lorca Airport is a 20-minute drive from the hotel.
Trains
Granada train station is a 10-minute drive from the hotel and has direct routes to many of Spain’s cities (with Seville, Córdoba and Madrid the closest).
Automobiles
You’ll only need a car if you’re exploring beyond the city or heading into the Sierra Nevada mountains; the bus from the airport even hits several stops along Gran Vía de Colón. But, if wheels are a must, the hotel can help with car rental and charged parking (€30 a day) is available.
Worth getting out of bed for
The neighbourhood you’re in is literally called Centro, which should clue you in as to how much you’ve lucked out with Palacio Gran Vía, a Royal Hideaway Hotel. The cathedral is just across the road, the Alhambra and Generalife Gardens are a 30-minute stroll away, and the Albaícin – one of the city’s most fascinating areas – spreads out ahead of you. Once you’ve covered the heavily decorated ground of the city’s famed hilltop palaces and gardens, tour the Royal Chapel, gawp at the views from the elevated Mirador de San Nicolás, and embrace the maximalism at the 18th-century Baroque Basílica de San Juan de Dios. Get some back story at the Archaeological Museum. Thread your way through the mediaeval alleys of the Albaícin, perhaps stopping to soak in a bathhouse before heading north to see the Sacromonte cave dwellings; then head to Federico Garcia Lorca Park to nose around the author’s former summer home (and spy the desk where he wrote some of his most famous books); then follow the castanet clicks to Tablao Flamenco La Alborea Granada for passionate dances over dinner.
Local restaurants
Faralá is as serious about food as it is playful with it, offering a trio of tasting menus; go all out with ‘Tradition, emotion and culture’, an array of sharing plates (asparagus sandwiches, eggplant and honey, tuna belly with fennel and caviar, prawn with seaweed in gazpacho) with witty platings that’ll keep you going till the regular flamenco show kicks off. In Realejo, the city’s ancient, yet much reinvigorated, Jewish quarter, Carmen de San Miguel is a mirador with panoramic city views that distract from dining; but not for long as goat’s cheese croquettes with quince jam, tempura cod taquitos with smoked pumpkin and garlic, beef rib baked with dark chocolate and cinnamon, and more make their way to your table. While Atelier’s philosophy of stripped-down simplicity applies to the sparse wooden decor, the food is more complex: croissants stuffed with oxtail and Béarnaise sauce, shrimp and partridge ravioli in achiote cream, grilled octopus with fermented pineapple and jalapeño. In a quite part of Albaícin, El Trillo has tasty Med meals of salmorejo soup, squid with ginger aioli on black rice, and wild boar with mushrooms; and for small plates (peppers stuffed with hake and prawns, blood sausage, lamb kidneys) and suckling meats, Asador de Castilla is a 10-minute walk away.
Local cafés
For breakfasts with a local flavour, head to Café 4 Gatos for toast topped with manchego and grated tomato or sobrassada, tortillas, and sandwiches with eggplant and anchovy or pork loin. And for sweet treats both serious and whimsical try Casa Pasteles.
Local bars
Bar Aixa requires a little effort for a night out, being placed up a hillside in Albaícin, but a jovial atmosphere and authentic feel make it worthwhile – and, if you’re lucky, the barkeeps might serenade you. And in Sacromonte, cave-like Bar Pibe may look humble, but offers excellent sundowner views of the Alhambra from its terrace. And trad tapas bar Bodegas Castañeda on Calle Almireceros does a fine line in vermouth and potent calicasas (a mix of gin, rum, vermouth and spices).
Every hotel featured is visited personally by members of our team, given the Smith seal of approval, and then anonymously reviewed. As soon as our reviewers have returned from this richly decorated bank turned hotel on Gran Vía de Colón and unpacked their fajalauza mugs and jugs, a full account of their dividend-paying break will be with you. In the meantime, to whet your wanderlust, here's a quick peek inside Palacio Gran Vía, a Royal Hideaway Hotel in Granada…
Built in 1905, Granada’s Rodríguez Acosta bank was far grander than any bank had any business being; there were no sad cordoned-off queues and glazed mortgage-peddling pods, rather wooden staircases you could actually sweep down, flowery stained-glass windows, tiles in intricate colours and patterns throughout the building. Hence, these days, its business is being luxury stay Palacio Gran Vía, a Royal Hideaway Hotel right on the Centro’s main drag. And, if anything, it’s just got grander – an ornate wooden ceiling was reclaimed from an antique Moorish house just to accentuate the staircase, the centre was opened up into a light-flooded patio for breakfasting, and upper floors have been apportioned into rooms with stuccos and parquet flooring, and suites with lavish ceilings and glazed galleries. Most exciting, the golden touch has been applied to the rooftop too, now a hang-out with can’t-put-a-price-on-them views. Rather sweetly, staff – who keep the place well-oiled – occasionally get guests who remember banking here back in the day, but we’d wager they’d much rather lay their money down here now.
