NH Palacio Hotel, Avilés, Asturias, Spaina

The NH Palacio Hotel in Avilés blends in nicely with its surroundings. Located on the city's main square opposite the town hall – or a building that looks surprisingly municipal – it gives nothing away from the outside. But once through the glass sliding doors all is revealed: this is a classy hotel offering a mix of grandiosity and modernity depending on where you are in the building. There is, for example, what might be called 'the old part' of the hotel, characterised by the grand staircase leading up to the hotel restaurant, which itself is rather grand in appearance with its high ceilings. Then, if you pass by the staircase and walk towards the elevators, the hotel takes on a more modern but nonetheless grand appearance.

Room 209, NH Palacio Hotel, Avilés...

But let's start from the beginning: the check-in. It's always nice when checking into a hotel is a simple and straightforward process and that was the case here at the Palacio. Within minutes I was making my way past the aforementioned grand staircase leading to the hotel restaurant and trudging on towards a left turn and the elevator, which I took to the second floor and then weaved my way around the corridor, past a modern galleried area to room 209 on my right.

The room followed a tried and tested layout: bathroom on the left, wardrobes on the right, then a long desk above which there was a flatscreen television facing the rather grand double bed with its six pillows and ornate headboard. 

Everything worked. The bathroom sported two wash basins and there was a pleasant shower and (mark of a good hotel, perhaps) a bidet, which I never used, but admired from a distance. There was a safe in the wardrobe.

What I really liked about the hotel room (and, indeed, the entire hotel) was the doors. They were made of a rich wood and were heavy and dependable.

I love hotels with wall-mounted sockets for the key cards. Knowing that the room simply won't work without inserting one's keycard into the slot is reassuring for one good reason: it means I'm not going to lose my keycard. It also saves on electricity as the room is plunged into darkness the moment the card is withdrawn.

Unusually, I got a good night's sleep from day one and every morning a refreshing shower prepared me for breakfast on the ground floor. The breakfast room was bright and airy and offered everything one needs for the most important meal of the day: hot beverages, bread, pastries, cooked meats, fresh fruit, yoghurts, you name it.

I tried the hotel restaurant on my third and final night. It was alright, but I could have done with larger portion sizes having eaten the night before at a restaurant across the road, which boasted plenty of meat and large chunks of bread, they even provided a grill on which customers could cook their own meat. And let's not forget the 'local brew' – cider – served in the same way street sellers in India serve coffee (by pouring it from a great height into a cup).

Travelling can be a stressful affair and every now and then I must admit that I, like everybody else, get things wrong, things which only have an adverse effect on myself, like spending two weeks staring at a boarding pass and somehow thinking that 1030hrs was at night and not in the morning. I convinced myself that I was flying out of Avilés at around 1030pm and hadn't for one moment considered that it might be 1030am, bearing in mind that the airlines rely upon the 24-hour clock. I was happily sending emails to people saying I needed picking up at around 8pm in the evening when really I should have been saying I needed a lift in the morning. How all this came about, I don't know, but I didn't finally twig until it was too late. I was sitting at the desk in the hotel room looking at the boarding pass and suddenly I got it. I started to panic. How, I wondered, could I resolve this problem? 

There were no flights out of Aviles, not after mine had departed, and I needed to be back home so I had to get a flight from somewhere. I decided to book a plane out of Bilbao and quickly purchased a one-way ticket online. But how do I get to Bilbao? I slung everything into a suitcase, didn't bother shaving and headed down to reception in a flustered state. Fortunately for me there was Anabel and Konchy, both of whom knew exactly how to resolve the problem and, in the process, calm me down as everything around me seemed to be going wrong.

I was advised to take the 1345 bus from Oviedo to Bilbao, which would take three hours, and then find my way by cab to the airport and my flight home. It all went very smoothly. Anabel even wrote out (in Spanish) instructions to the man behind the desk at the bus station – everything went smoothly and I got home safely.  

So, in addition to being a great hotel, the NH Palacio employs great people too. Should I ever find myself in Avilés, I'll be rebooking this amazing place. 

Avilés, by the way, is a lovely place. It's a small but perfectly formed city in a picturesque region known as 'green Spain'. And it's only 90 minutes from London.