Hotel Palacio de Samaniego, Basque Country, Spain
Hotel Palacio de Samaniego is a lovingly restored old 17th century Bishop's Palace. It is situated in the quiet little town of Samaniego, at the heart of Rioja Alavesa, one of Spain's prime wine-producing areas.
The owners are a young couple that between them boast a wealth of experience. Particularly worth a mention is the culinary training of Jon Ugalde, the chef, who has trained with the leading lights of New Basque Cuisine, commonly regarded as Spain's finest.
Hotel offers 11 spacious rooms, nine double rooms and 2 superior rooms, all spacious and equipped with ensuite bathroom, hair-dryer, heating, telephone, television and WIFI internet connection. The bedrooms of the Palacio de Samaniego are nicely furnished and decorated with natural materials and cheerful printed fabrics, creating a warm and cosy atmosphere.
It seems, the proud character of the old house is trying to draw your attention to its long history in many ways. Unplastered stone walls and wrought-iron bedsteads create a cosy and distinctive atmosphere. Hotel Palacio de Samaniego has a lounge and a bar in the hall of the building and a garden to the rear where guests can sit out.
Food & Drink: Chef Jon passion for cooking with fresh, local ingredients comes through in all his dishes. Its curriculum includes many years of dedication to the hotel and restaurant industry and, most importantly, the tutelage of acclaimed master chefs such as Martin Berasategui.
With a fine balance of creativity and refinement, Jon has developed a seasonal cuisine based on renewed traditional meals with the emphasis on quality ingredients which he selects himself. And of course this gives the perfect opportunity to sample the local wines! Restaurant offers breakfast, lunch and evening meal divided in three separated bright and cheerful dining rooms. Restaurant is only opened on the weekend.
As a taster, diners could choose ravioli of marinated tuna with tomato gelée and watermelon gazpacho to then continue with a salad of carpaccio of langoustines and tomato confit with raspberry vinaigrette. Meat and fish form the backbone of the main dishes, with a wide assortment of ingredients
such as roast fillet of monkfish on a bed of pisto with an egg-yolk emulsion or baked stuffed pigs trotters with escalope of foie and a Reinette compote.
Mouth-watering desserts round off this culinary offering, which has been accompanied by the outstanding wines that abound in this area; indeed, wine is another aspect that the Palacio de Samaniego pays very special attention to.
Surroundings: Hotel Palacio de Samaniego provides its visitors with the ideal base from which to explore La Rioja Alavesa. As well as vineyards, wine museums and bodegas, the area offers a wealth of historical and cultural attractions including dolmens and churches, and a visit to the nearby medieval town of Laguardia is an absolute must. Centuries of history are preserved in a wealth of historic towns and villages such as Samaniego, Laguardia, Lanciego and Labastida to name a few. Rioja Alavesa is just over an hour from Bilbao and an ideal short break.
Wine aficionados should visit the strikingly modern bodegas hat have mushroomed in the region, as well as those that are long-standing. Bodega El Fabulista is a dimly-lit cave network beneath the stately Palacio Samaniego in the small town of Laguardia, where two large vats are still used for grape-treading and produce an impressive 32,000 litres of wine a year.
At the other end of the scale, Bodega Baigorri in Samaniego is a relatively new winery of spectacular contemporary design. An underground James Bond-like interior turns out wine that has been produced and fine-tuned with the latest methods.
Hotel Facilities
- Restaurant
- Access for Disabled
- Bar-Cafeteria
- Garden
- Meeting Room
- Living Room
- Games Room
Room Details
- Television
- Telephone
- Heating
- Bathroom (ensuite)
- WIFI Internet Connection
- Hair-Dryer
Map
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Guide to the Basque Countryside
Miguel de Unamuno wrote one of the best definitions of the Basque countryside: "everything seems to be at your fingertips, made to order for the people who reside here and give it life; it is a domestic landscape, homelike, where more earth than sky can be seen". Bizkaia's inland valleys are uneven and beautiful, with high mountains and low valleys cloaked in legends and deep valleys with a marked rural flavour. The Encartaciones is land of battles between different sides and tower houses, many of them perfectly kept that will take us, magically, to an enchanted past.
The region of Alava's western valleys presents an outstanding natural landscape. In the north we find the valleys of Zuia and Ayala, with their refreshing waterfalls and solid tower-houses. In the south, we can find singular landscapes such as the Salinas de Añana and the ravine of the Valderejo Natural Park. The Alava Plain has been always a passing route for many pilgrims and traders.
Following the course of the river Oria and under the unmistakable silhouette of the Txindoki mountain we will find settled Tolosaldea, a county that better has kept alive its Basque cultural and folk traditions, along with Goierri. In order to know deeply this region's characteristics we must visit municipalities like Idiazabal, famous because of its worldly famous cheese, Segura and Zerain. Finally, we'll go to Ormaiztegi where, for instance, we can visit Zumalakarregi's historic museum.