Parador Avila Spain

Avila is one of the very few European cities which retains its medieval walls in their entirety (Carcassone in France being another). This makes for a splendidly impressive sight as one approaches from the valley below. The parador, originally a nobiliar palace, is located roughly half way up the hill, it's a longish, steep hike to the top where the sights -- the cathedral, the Romanesque churches, the colonnaded main square-- are. It's not advisable to try this in your car, there's a bewildering maze of one way streets, interspersed with construction detours and there is quite simply no place to park. The parador itself is nicely appointed although the interior has been so thoroughly modernized that there is little evidence of the ancient origins. It's a little over an hour's drive from Madrid, so that if does not chose to stay in the capital this is about the right distance if one arrives, sleep deprived, on an overnight flight from the States. There's an hourly train service to Madrid, so that one can choose to use Avila as a base for taking in the sights there if one wishes to return to the relative calm of a small town in the evening, and the parador, at about $120 for the night, costs a lot less than a comparable hotel in the capital would.