We stayed here for a week in late April. The local area is nice but not a patch on Snowdonia, the English Lakes or the highlands of Scotland.

First the hotel. It is on the edge of Hoyos Del Espino and is surrounded by other houses. HDE is not up to much. It has a few bars, but none of them have much that is redeeming about them, so you wouldn't want to linger in any of them for too long. The hotel itself is a nice size and is very nicely designed both architecturally and decoratively. All the staff seem quite cheerful and speak enough english to get the job done. We booked a suite and got the room 26 the Arabe suit, which was nice, with great views overlooking the mountains.

I guess we were there at a quiet time of year but there were very few people there during the week; because of this there was really no atmosphere at all in the public rooms, which is a shame. Although the staff are nice they are a bit thin on the ground; quite a few times we came back from a day out, or came upstairs from having dinner and wanted a drink in the bar, but the place would be deserted. In the end we resorted to having a post walk beer in one of the dull village bars, or got some provisions in from the local Spar and went to back to our room after dinner. Other couple seemed to do the same.

What was a shame was that there was no 'welcome back' to the hotel at the end of each day. In so many walking areas we have been welcomed back with cakes, tea and coffee, hot chocolate or even a beer or two. Here there was nothing, which made it a bit dull. I think because of this, the public rooms were virtually always deserted, even at the weekend when it got busier. And of course, the tell tale sign of a weak bar - no draft beer! That means they don't get enough customers to justify it. Pity, as it would have been so much nicer to have gone straight back to the hotel at the end of the day.

There was one thing that did annoy me. Our room overlooked the very nice, but small garden. On Wednesday evening a group of about 5 people had some drinks served to them in the garden. Come Friday evening the same glasses and bottles were still there. They had gone by Saturday morning. We had to look at these for 2 days. Not good enough.

The spa is about 50 metres from the hotel and is a separate business. It costs 32 euros for one person to simply access the spa pools. The spa is quite small, but the main bit is quite nice. You have to go on a mini spa journey, with a sequence of different jets that pummel different bits of you body. That takes about 30 minutes max. The next thing to do, unless you want a treatment, is to go in the swimming pool, sit on a lounger and have someone bring you a nice fruit smoothie or something - except you CAN'T DO THIS AS THE POOL IS FULL OF VILLAGE KIDS HAVING SWIMMING LESSONS - which means the pool is off limits. Even if it was on limits, you wouldn't want to do it because of the din the kids make. So if your idea of a spa is somewhere you can unwind and relax DON"T GO TO THIS ONE! Also, you can't get the smoothie as they don't really do drinks; the closest you'll get is being offered a plastic beaker of water or fruit juice in the cramped reception area, which is also full of kids and their mothers ( so to is the gents changing room!). Even worse, the staff got a bit stroppy when I politely refused the offer of a drink; they didn't seem to understand that I might prefer to have a drink in my 4 star hotel (if I could have found someone to serve one) rather than their cramped room. So, it was back to our Spar provisions again!

Last but not least the hotel food. I don't know what the hotel food costs as we were on a package with Headwater, so I can't comment on value except to say it cost us a lot of money to be there. The dining room is very nice with panoramic windows which give the same view we got from our balcony. My major problem with the food is that the menu was the same every night for a week. I lie actually, it did change - some nights some of the choices were 'off'. On the Wednesday and Thursday nights THREE of the main courses were off. Given that there were only about 7 choices to start with, and two of these were different steaks, that didn't leave a lot left.

At best the food is quite nice; at worst it is dreadful. They have, I think, a young chef who wants to be Ferran Adria, but simply hasn't got his ability. I have always believed that Spanish food at it's best is like eating at a medieval banquet, with wonderful grill meats, fish and seafoods, but that it doesn't 'fancy up' easily. You have to have real talent to achieve this, and their chef doesn't have it, I'm sad to say. If I'm being harshly critical, it's because the hotel website presents itself as a centre for gastronomic experiences. It simply does not achieve this; rather it is the kings clothes!

For example, whist in Madrid we had some outstanding cabrito (goat) in a swanky joint in the Cheuca area. It was truly wonderful. When we arrived here we found baby goat on the menu, and were advised to have it buy one of the owners, Theresa. It was disgusting! I only ate a few bits of it. Even the spanish customers were complaining - in fact demanding to see the chef at the table - because it was so bad. If you ever see the film 'The Fly' where Jeff Goldbloom teleports a baboon, but it arrives inside out. It was bit like that. Not nice.

Another night I had a cream of Courgette and Spring Garlic soup with cockles in Jelly. I knew I was in trouble when my soup bowl arrived (sans soup) with two eyes looking up at me. The waiter then poured the soup into the bowl, but those eyes (the cockles) were still staring at me, imploring me not to eat them. I knew things weren't ok when I touched the rim of the bowl - it was stone cold. The soup was tepid, but only in parts as the other parts were cold. The soup was ok, but would have had more flavour hot. Then I tried one of the eyes. It was disgusting. The jelly was ice cold, and the mouth feel was vile. The only thing I've had in my mouth that felt worse was sea slug in Singapore. I wanted to spit it out, but was afraid I'd pebble dash the panoramic window, so I gulped. Again, not nice.

There are so many things I could go on about; the aubergine starter ( I love aubergine) that was like styrofoam, the cheese parcels where the cheese smells worse than Vietnamese rotting fish and lingers on your clothes for day. The fillet steak was the dullest I've ever had anywhere. The chef cannot cook medium rare by the way.

What the restaurant is wonderful for is wine. They have a fantastic wine list. We got stuck into the spanish wines ( they have a large French list as well), and never paid more than about 30 euros for a bottle and they were all excellent. My only slight quibble, is that most of these wines threw a good sediment and should have been decanted, but weren't. What's a shame is that the food really not do the wines justice.

The breakfasts were ok, but a bit dull and predictable.

If the hotel could sharpen up its food and it's service in the public rooms, it could be excellent. But as it is, it's just ok.