Caro Hotel

Caro Hotel

Valencia is on Spain's Mediterranean coast, three hours from Madrid by train and less than two from Barcelona, and it is the kind of city that people who live in both will quietly tell you is better than either. It is Spain's third largest city and has spent years being underestimated, which has suited it fine. The pace is genuinely relaxed, the food is arguably the best argument for visiting Spain at all, and the tourist density is a fraction of Barcelona's. Paella was invented here, and eating the real version, made with rabbit and green beans rather than the seafood approximation the rest of the world thinks it is, near the Albufera wetlands where the rice is grown, is one of those experiences that renders every previous paella irrelevant. Beyond that there is fideuà, horchata made fresh from tiger nuts, the Mercat Central housed in a magnificent Art Nouveau building, and the neighbourhood of Ruzafa where the city's creative and restaurant energy has concentrated. Las Fallas in March, when the city builds enormous satirical sculptures and burns them all in one night, is one of the most extraordinary public festivals in Europe. The crowd is design-minded, food-driven, and not particularly interested in being seen. Come in spring or autumn, when the light is good and the city is at its most liveable. Valencia has been continuously inhabited for over two thousand years, and no building in the city makes that fact more visceral than the Caro. It is the only official historical monument hotel in Valencia, set in a 14th-century Gothic palace that was originally the private mansion of the Marquis de Caro. The building contains a 2nd-century BC Roman mosaic from Valencia's founding, a 12th-century Arabic defensive wall that runs through the restaurant, Gothic arches, and a 19th-century neoclassical façade, all stacked on top of each other like a cross-section of the city's entire biography. The people who choose to stay here tend to be the ones for whom finding that mosaic in the basement is the highlight of the trip, not an interesting detail on the way to something else. The interior design by Francesc Rifé takes the opposite approach to all of this history: strictly minimalist, monochromatic, and spare, which has the effect of making every ancient wall and archway read like something in a gallery. Some rooms have medieval coffered ceilings. Others have Moorish arches. No two are the same. There are 26 rooms and over 30 staff, a ratio that tells you something about the level of attention on offer. The restaurant, Xanglot, has its own story. Chef Sandra Jorge started it as a family project in a small space near the cathedral, built a following serious enough to earn a Michelin Guide listing and a Bib Gourmand, and then moved the whole operation into the Caro's extraordinary basement dining room, flanked by the 12th-century Arabic wall, when the hotel approached her. It is not the hotel's restaurant in the conventional sense, it is a chef's restaurant that happens to be inside the hotel, which is a meaningful distinction. Three tasting menus, all built around Valencian produce and Sandra's instinct for contrast and surprise. The terrace has a plunge pool. There is a library. Breakfast is served in a glass-ceilinged basement next to further fragments of Roman and Islamic history. This is the hotel for someone who wants to sleep inside two thousand years of civilisation and wake up to excellent coffee. The short version: A 26-room Gothic palace in Valencia's old town, the city's only official historical monument hotel, with Roman mosaics, a 12th-century Moorish wall, and medieval arches built into the fabric of the rooms. Minimalist design by Francesc Rifé, a Michelin-listed restaurant by chef Sandra Jorge, a plunge pool terrace, and a staff-to-guest ratio that means you are genuinely looked after. The building alone is a reason to visit Valencia.