Hacienda de San Rafael

A couple of words aboutHACIENDA DE SAN RAFAEL(www.haciendadesanrafael.com), where we spent the last 5 nights. This is a charming, family-owned country inn on a working farm 35 minutes south of Seville. The hacienda has been highly recommended by Andrew Harper, voted most heavenly hideaway by Tatler, been on Conde Nast traveller Gold list etc. and even though I knew it was not a luxury hotel, I had expected more.

The hacienda has 11 rooms and three casitas. We stayed in a casita (around 500 euro per night) which was light, clean and very nicely decorated with furniture in the rustique chic style, lots of paitings on the walls, books and games to use. It consists of a spacious living room with dining table for 4, sitting area with comfortable sofa and a chair. No TV. Separate bedroom with hard but nice looking bed. Little kitchen with fridge and coffee making facilities. Wardrobe and bathroom in between living and bedroom. Double sinks, separate shower, bathtub in one room and a separate toilet. Plenty wardrobe space. Plus an upstairs area with some pillows and a table. All very good. BUT: Aircondition only in bedroom and this was just not good enough, meaning we could not really use the other rooms and our son (sleeping in the living room) could hardly fall asleep in the evening. This must be changed! Nice outside area with a Bali-inspired "bale" with dining table for three and comfortable daybed with lots of pillows for lounging + sun loungers. Separate pool for only casitas shared between the three casitas.

Breakfast (continental included) and lunch served at casita so that one did not really have a feeling of staying in a hotel, more a serviced little villa instead was very good. English speaking management would come around to take your orders, other personnel did not speak English. Dinner served at hacienda. We tried it twice, but were very disappointed with the quality for the price paid. We are more than willing to pay for good food, but this was not worth it. A child meal would cost 20 euro (for a portion of pasta with tomato sauce) - more than in any other luxury hotel that we have stayed in. Food for adults would be a three course dinner which was more of "a wanna be culinary" and not at all typical Spanish. Also not tasty.

Service was extremely varied and dependent on who was the manager on duty. From very personal and reading your mind-like service to simple order taking and not speaking neither English nor Spanish very well. This would be what I define as their biggest problem.

That is is we would be able to forget about the flies. Which is impossible, as this hacieda was "fly heaven". Never in my life have I been somewhere with such a huge amount of flies. I could never take a siesta outside, because they were crawling over me all the time. Of course not the fault of the people running the hotel, but a HUGE problem. And unfortunately what I will remember the most about this hacienda...