What's New: An Online Update for Frommer's Seville, Granada & the Best of Andalusia

Seville

In the Barrio de Triana, a 5-minute walk to La Maestranza, is the new Hotel Zenit Sevilla, Canalejas 1 (tel. 800/387-8842; www.zenithhoteles.com), a hotel with plenty of character and much comfort. This hotel offers good, affordable, and cozy lodgings. Each bedroom is midsize and up to date, with wooden furnishings, mirrors, and carpeting, along with tiled bathrooms with tub and shower. If you're dining in on any night, the on-site restaurant, Almares, offers an excellent international cuisine, with many typical platters from Andalusia itself.

Occidental Sevilla, Avenida Kansas City (tel. 95-491-97-97; www.occidental-hoteles.com), is located in a residential and commercial area of town, only a 10-minute walk from the historical core. This winning choice stands opposite the AVE train station of Santa Justa. Its exterior has a bit more style than some of the more highly rated glass-and-steel palaces. It offers large bedrooms with comfort, a certain charm, and an array of contemporary furnishings with matching fabrics and simple lines. Each comes with a tiled bathroom with tub and shower. The more expensive bedrooms are in the Royal Club, dubbed a "five-star hotel within a four-star property." Here a breakfast is served exclusively for club guests, and you get better service and amenities as well.

Right in the historic center, facing the Parque de la Cartuja and close to the Museo de Bellas Artes, the inviting Hotel Regina, Calle San Vincente 97 (tel. 95-490-75-75; www.hotelreginasevilla.com) was constructed in anticipation of the Seville Exposition but was given a new lease on life after renovations. Its spacious pastel rooms are filled with light woods. The bathrooms are immaculate and come with tub-and-shower combos. The hotel staff can arrange guided tours of the city.

Cordoba

In the heart of Córdoba, just a short walk from the historic district is Occidental Gran Capitán, Avenida América 5 (tel. 95-747-02-50; www.occidental-hoteles.com). This modern 6-story hotel lies opposite the rail station in the vicinity of the Mesquita. It has been completely renovated. Short on charm, it's big on comfort. Bedrooms are midsize and tastefully appointed, each coming with an average-sized bathroom with tub-and-shower combination. The furniture is of a standard international style for a first-class hotel, and many rooms open onto vistas of the city. The hotel is recommended primarily for its facilities, which range from a piano bar to La Reja, a gastronomic restaurant. Because of all its modern gadgetry, including secretarial services, it is one of the most preferred choices for business clients. The staff is among the most helpful in Córdoba and will even shine your shoes.

For motorists who want to escape the congestion of the city, this hotel, Occidental Córdoba, Poeta Alonso Bonilla 3 (tel. 95-776-74-76; www.occidental-hoteles.com), lies on the outskirts in the vicinity of the parador. In fact, it is comparable in style and luxury to the parador itself. Constructed with architectural flair, it was completely renovated and given a new lease on life. Surrounded by beautiful gardens, it evokes an Andalusian homestead with a certain harmony of style and grace. On an August day in Córdoba, there is no place we'd rather be than in its inviting pool. Bedrooms are midsize in design and tastefully and harmoniously furnished with light wooden furniture resting on tiled floors. Each of the units open onto vistas of the surrounding country, and each contains an immaculate, tiled bathroom with tub-and-shower combination. Many visitors view the Occidental as a resort, yet it lies only a 7-minute drive from the heart of Córdoba. Its cuisine, with both Córdoban specialties and Mediterranean influences, is of such a high standard that you won't have to sneak away at night for dinner. At the La Parrilla restaurant near the pool, fresh fish and grilled meats, plus a large buffet selection, await you.

This is a distinctly modern and new hotel, Hotel Maciá Alfaros, Calle Alfaros 18 (tel. 95-749-22-10; www.maciahoteles.com) receiving hordes of bus-driven tour groups from Asia, America, and other parts of Europe. It is comfortable but not quite as comfortable as you'd expect from its self-anointed role as a contemporary government-rated four-star palace. Its five-story premises is set within a labyrinth of narrow streets near the ruins of an ancient Roman temple, a brisk 15- to 20-minute walk uphill from the Mezquita. The look is vaguely Moorish, but it's merely the mock. You enter through a garage area, not an attractive debut, but the hotel improves remarkably once you're inside. Its most charming aspect is a cool and graceful swimming pool set within the courtyard, which, is best enjoyed early on summer mornings before the armadas of sunbathers and swimmers, all of whom are residents of the hotel, descend upon it. It features a design whereby newcomers enter on the building's third floor (which is also the lobby level). Frankly, bedrooms are a wee bit small and a wee bit inconvenient, without enough drawer or storage space and some tacky built-in furniture that is simply not up to the standards of many of the other four-star hotels we visited in Andalusia. But the architects at least tried to insert some references to old Andalusia, which are most visible within the courtyard, where the symmetry is a welcome grace note. The hotel is a member of a respected chain that stretches throughout other cities of Andalusia, but you'll have to work hard here, despite a well-intentioned staff, to fight off a sense of anonymity.

The new Hotel Selu, Eduardo Dato 7 (tel. 95-747-65-00; www.hotelselu.com), is not a spectacular choice but is recommendable to bargain hunters. If you plan to spend most of your time sightseeing, and need a hotel just for a well-maintained and comfortable retreat at night, consider the Selu. It lies close to the Judería and the Mesquita in the town center. Bedrooms are midsize for the most part and furnished with few decorations but contain good beds and perhaps a mirrored wall here and there. Each comes with a small bathroom with tub-and-shower combination. Rooms are evenly distributed over the hotel's three floors.

Córdoba now boasts both a McDonald's, which is inconveniently far from the city center, and a very central branch of Burger King, Calle Concepción 12 (tel. 95-747-27-50), which has managed -- perhaps inadvertently -- to position itself as one of the premier social outlets for Cordoda's roiling masses of teenagers and 20-somethings. Our tongue-in-cheek advice to red-blooded college-age males, or college-age wannabes, is this: Consider dropping in for a Whopper and a beer (YES, they serve beer here), and watch the local chiquitas (some of them extraordinarily pretty) enjoying spinoffs of the American experience. Your visit to this place, while not exactly gastronomically insightful, will encourage some cross cultural ironies, and even lead to the establishment of a new acquaintance or two. The large-scale mural against one wall shows what looks like a generic version of New York, minus its Twin Towers, and the burgers taste fine.

Granada

Across the Río Genil from the Palacio de Congresos, San Antón, Calle San Antón (tel. 95-852-01-00; www.eh.etursa.es) is a new first-class hotel that caters to commercial clients, but attracts a number of vacationers in the summer months. Rising eight stories, it is a typical city hotel with architecturally straight lines graced only with panoramic windows. It has been continually improved in minor ways since its inauguration, and is well located because guests can walk to many of the touristic highlights of Granada from here. Bedrooms are well furnished with modern wooden pieces, carpeting, as well as coordinated colors. These midsize accommodations are equipped with tiled bathrooms with tub-and-shower combinations. In reserving, request accommodations in the -01 or -03 series as these upper-floor chambers open onto Alhambra views. A decorator jazzed up the public rooms, adorning the lobby with fluted columns and lots of marble. There are touches of Art Deco in the curving banisters and chrome-plated accents. Of the two restaurants, we give our nod to the top floor choice where Andalusian specialties will tempt you. Tables open onto views of the Alhambra.

San Nicolás, Carrera del Gentil 48 (tel. 95-880-42-62), occupies a distinguished-looking white house that's immediately adjacent to both the panoramic Plaza San Nicolas, in the upper Albaicón, and a vaulted brick cistern that local guides will tell you has supplied water to the surrounding neighborhood since the times of the Arab occupation. Inside, within an environment that's cozily outfitted in a 19th-century French style, you can order tasty dishes that include partridge baked with onions; medallions of Iberian pork in sherry sauce; roasted leg of lamb with thyme, sautéed sweetbreads of lamb; monkfish casserole prepared in the "mozarabic" style; and pil-pil (i.e., very spicy) codfish. To begin, you might want a bowl of very thick tomato soup (salmorejo).

Marbella

In the residential area of Guadalmina, right outside Marbella, Golf Hotel Guadalmina, Urb. Guadalmina Baja (tel. 95-288-22-11; www.hotelguadalmina.com) is surrounded by two scenic golf courses and the Mediterranean. It's been completely renewed and vastly improved All the accommodations are midsize to spacious. Bedrooms are comfortable and well furnished, and the decor is typical Andalusian. Rooms open onto the sea (the most desirable), the golf courses, or the hotel's gardens. Both a Spanish and an international cuisine are served at the first-class La Terraza. Golfers check in here in droves, as Guadalmina is one of the golf pioneers along the coast. Many families have taught their children to swim in the hotel's impressively large pool. If that fails, there is also a kiddie pool that's securely shallow. Moviegoers might already recognize the resort. The film A Touch of Class was filmed here, starring Glenda Jackson, who received an Oscar for best actress.

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