Experience The Magnificence Of Ubeda’s Historic Hotel Ordóñez Sandoval

The World Heritage Site of Ubeda, twinned with Baeza, in the heart of Jaen province is full of grandiose  Renaissance buildings. Italian influences abound in the sandstone churches, palaces, and stately homes built in the 16th and 17th centuries but Ubeda´s history dates far further back, and in the heart of the Jewish Quarter is the hotel and home – Hotel Ordoñez Sandoval.

This family home, where Felipe Ordóñez Sandoval was born, was restored in 1889 in the neoclassical style and decorated by the engineer Don José Iturralde with Belgian furniture. It was a convent for a while at the beginning of the 20th Century and then again became the Ordóñez Sandoval family home.

Now back to living in the family home, and restoring it bit by bit, the present owner runs the four-room hotel. A beautiful step-back-into-the-past place to stay full of antiques and family mementos, oozing with charm and history. The hotel entrance is one of those grand wooden doorways that when shut you wonder what is behind and when open, revealing the gorgeous antique-tiled entrance leading up to wrought iron gates with an internal patio behind, makes you want to peek through the railings.

We pressed the buzzer and were welcomed, into the arched patio with a lady’s carriage in the middle, full of artifacts. I felt honored to be able to stay in this living-history home Historical Hotel Ordóñez Sandoval in Ubeda and honor the deep respect for the care and conservation being poured into the ongoing and never-ending maintenance and improvements of the Ordoñez Sandoval home.

Breakfast was served in the drawing room with linen table cloths and serviettes, carefully presented ample choice, and more than ample sufficiency. I loved it all – the original hydraulic tiles, stained glass windows above the patio, and the walled patio/garden with birds singing in the center of the city.

Sheer pleasure. Our bedroom was a very good size, the bathroom too, very nicely decorated and in keeping, There is no parking but a free car park a couple of minutes walk away and not much more than that brings you to the main monumental plaza and the shops where you should definitely check out the famous Ubeda potteries and the Esparto grass products. Ubeda I will keep returning!