The Best Hotels Near Fairmont La Hacienda Costa del Sol, by the Record
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Saltwater pools sit under palms, the breeze carries a faint hint of Gibraltar, and the whole resort is done in the kind of earthy, natural textures that make you feel like you've been offline for a week by afternoon. OKU Andalusia is a coastal resort near Algeciras where rooms look over gardens or the sea, suites add private pools, and the spa has an indoor pool for days when the sun is doing too much. Meals shift from farm-fresh breakfasts to Mediterranean tapas in courtyards and poolside terraces.
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Nine rooms arranged around two courtyards bring a Moroccan riad to the Spanish side of the Strait of Gibraltar. The style leans into Moorish tilework and lanterns without going full theme park, and a hammam and rooftop terrace cover most of the amenities you'd actually want. It sits in the heart of old Tarifa, which handles the rest: good restaurants, shops, and the beach all within a short walk.
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Three sixteenth-century buildings, one of them formerly a church, arranged around a series of open Andalusian patios on Marbella's prettiest old-town square. The hotel holds its Michelin Key, and the original stone archways and ceiling frescoes have been kept while the nineteen rooms go quietly modern, with wood-beamed ceilings, marble showers, and Marshall speakers as standard. The rooftop bar, summer evenings only, looks out over the old town to the sea.
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Six rooms and a suite, tucked into a 17th-century mansion in Marbella's old town, a quiet rebuke to everything the Costa del Sol is usually doing wrong. Original Moorish tilework and peaked timber ceilings share space with flat-screens and bathroom fixtures that arrived this century, and the rooftop terrace handles both breakfast and evening drinks with minimal fuss. Small, well-considered, and a long way from the tower-block norm down the coast.
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Six rooms is all Plaza 18 offers, so getting in requires some planning. This boutique hotel occupies a 19th-century merchant's house in whitewashed Vejer de la Frontera, and the design pedigree shows throughout. Breakfast comes from local farms and lands in the garden; afternoons bring mint tea and Moroccan cakes in a living room hung with art. The terrace catches mountain views. It feels less like a hotel than staying with friends who happen to have excellent taste.
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Twelve rooms in a converted townhouse on a hilltop in Andalusia, with views that allegedly reach Tangier on a clear day. Hotel Boutique V fills those rooms with Portuguese antiques and contemporary lines, then sends everyone to the roof terrace, where a jacuzzi does most of the heavy social lifting. The kind of place that attracts a quietly stylish crowd who found it and told no one, or at least very few people.
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