Hotel Boutique Iulia

Hotel Boutique Iulia occupies a nineteenth-century manor house in the centre of Medina de las Torres, a village in the province of Badajoz nine kilometres from Zafra. The restoration kept the original layout of the house - the entrance portal, the proportions of the rooms, the ironwork and woodwork - and added contemporary systems, from underfloor climate control to fibre-optic connectivity. The six bedrooms and the common areas look onto the inner courtyard, where the pool is.

On the ground floor three sitting rooms and a library are open to guests, together with a kitchen where breakfast is served and where the fridge stays available at any hour. The courtyard with its heated saltwater pool, the shaded seating and the garden complete the outdoor space. Zafra, whose alcázar of the Dukes of Feria is now a Parador, is nine kilometres away; the A-66 motorway, the Vía de la Plata, is a few minutes by car.

The house is run directly by the owning family, who look after the welcome and the service themselves. Twenty-four hour reception, daily housekeeping, room service, laundry and ironing for a fee, luggage storage and free parking. Check-in is from 14:00, check-out by 12:00.

The property is entirely non-smoking, with a designated area outdoors. Family rooms and ground-floor accommodation are available for guests who prefer to avoid stairs; pool towels are provided by the hotel. Stays with pets need to be agreed with the hotel in advance.

The six bedrooms are all different: three Premium doubles, two De Luxe Premium rooms that take a third bed, and the Junior Suite Iulia, with a terrace and space for up to four. Balconies and tall windows bring daylight into the rooms; period furniture sits alongside contemporary pieces, and the spa-style bathrooms have GROHE fittings and non-slip Surfex baths or showers.

Every room has underfloor climate control and air conditioning, a 55 to 65 inch smart TV, 300-thread-count Egyptian cotton linen and a pillow menu, pure cotton towels, a free safe, a hairdryer and 1 Gb fibre Wi-Fi Mesh. The main sitting room has a 75 inch screen. There is no lift in the building; some rooms are on the ground floor.

Breakfast is included and served buffet-style from 8 to 11 in the house kitchen: local produce, starting with Medina olive oil, cured meats and cheeses, fresh fruit, pastries, juices, tea and Nespresso coffee. It is self-service, with the kitchen at guests' disposal for eggs or anything else, at their own pace. The fridge with water, juice and fruit stays open around the clock.

The hotel has no restaurant of its own. For lunch and dinner the owners point guests to their own bar-restaurant, some fifty metres from the entrance, and to other addresses in the village and in Zafra; bookings are arranged at reception.

Medina de las Torres is a village of about a thousand people in the Zafra-Río Bodión district of Extremadura, on the route of the Vía de la Plata and the Camino de Santiago. It keeps the parish church of Nuestra Señora del Camino with its sixteenth-century retable, the medieval tower known as the Torre de los Moros, and the remains of the Roman town of Contributa Iulia Ugultunia, listed as Bien de Interés Cultural and the source of the hotel's name. Chalcolithic dolmens and Iron Age burials lie in the surrounding countryside, and the bronze Tartessian figure known as the Guerrero de Medina de las Torres comes from here.

Around the village the land alternates dehesa, olive groves and the courses of the Atarja stream and the river Bodión, with a wetland frequented by herons and spoonbills. Zafra, with the alcázar of the Dukes of Feria and the Plaza Grande, is nine kilometres away; Mérida and its Roman archaeological ensemble about seventy, Badajoz ninety, Seville a hundred and fifty. Access is from the A-66 and the N-630.