From The Sunday Times Travel Magazine February, 2008, issue

£108: De las Letras Hotel

Madrid’s Gran Via was always a ‘statement’ street, cut out of the city in the early 20th century in a clean sweep and lined with extravagant architecture typical of the age.

As you wander along it, you get a sense of great ambitions – a new world. Buenos Aires, maybe, or Manhattan. Among this swagger, De las Letras Hotel has arrived. And it belongs. All six floors and 103 rooms may be squeakingly modern, but the hotel has wisely hung on to its architectural heritage: sculptures, mosaics and the staircase that came with the place in 1917. The muted designer good looks manage to be shag-pad groovy while not frightening the businessmen; we’re not so sure about the literary quotes on the walls, though, unless you specifically want bed and Brecht-fast.

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The top-floor suites, in the cupolas, have private decked terraces and sun loungers: reclining with sangria and views of Gran Via’s ornate facades is like starring in an Almodóvar movie – that early one in the glam rooftop apartment with the jug of sedative-spiked gazpacho. If you can face rising, there’s a spa with hydrothermal treatments, a bar playing idle background lounge, and a restaurant doing Japanese tapas, which presumably makes them Japas. All very now, but nicely so.

De las Letras Hotel (00 800 3746 8357) has doubles from £108, B&B.

£176: Casa de Madrid

It’s a cliche in articles of this sort to describe a hotel as ‘like staying at a friend’s place’. Yet here we really have it: your capital home from home. Casa de Madrid comprises seven muralled rooms, which sprawl over the second floor of an 18th-century apartment block in the streets behind Plaza de Santo Domingo.

You’d never find it without directions since there’s no signage or name by the bell – and that’s precisely the pleasure of the place for guests including big-name opera singers on the bill at the Teatro Real, just across the street. Spaces are filled with antique furniture and heirlooms, among them 17th-century portraits – see the Spanish Room – and pictures of the owner’s ancestors.

Marta Medina, who bought the property in 2000, restored it with respect for the layout, floors and woodwork. Then she filled it with memories of places she’s visited: Syria, India, Greece and Italy. Her travels show through in frescoes and embellishments. In the Greek Room, for instance, is a mural of an amphitheatre; on the ceiling, above a bed sentried by classical columns, you’ll spot the insignia of Alexander the Great. Despite the grandeur, you’d be hard pushed to feel more at home in Madrid.

Casa de Madrid (00 34 915 595791) has doubles from £176, B&B.

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