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Ubeda's Best Restaurant and Hotel

Dine in Style in this Unusual Museum/Restaurant/Hotel in Spain.

Aug 8, 2007 Rachel L. Webb

Wondering where to eat on your Ubeda trip? Traditional Jaen gastronomy and local wines contribute to a most incredible experience in a museum restaurant in Andalucia.

Relics are everywhere in this intriguingly unique bar/restaurant/museum/hotel in Ubeda, the heart of Jaén province, Andalucia.The museum/restaurant is a junkies dream. Junk and stuff- crammed everywhere it's an Aladdin’s cave and a horders delight.

If you're looking for a different hotel and restaurant, this is it, a unique and stylish place that will be the highlight and talking point of your trip. Have drink in its bar, a meal in its restaurant or a stay in its hotel and you won't be disappointed.

Having seen the Renaissance monuments and followed guidebook trails, the museum is only a casual stroll away from Ubeda’s tourist monumental centre. Down an unremarkable, in fact rather dingy back street.

After the impressive honey-coloured churches and castles, which were stunning, this restaurant/hotel is an incredible sight - a white 3 story façade adorned with agricultural implements from street level to rooftop. A jaw-opening, foot-stopping sight.

The Bar

Dim lights and clutter abounded in the cosy bar, in a chair, a haven. Mock old wall decorations with very real agriculutral implements crammed into every nook and centimetre of space.

No high-ceilings or glitter here, it's more like entering a cave where your eyes need to adjust to the light, but also take in the incredibility and the quantity of the decor.

The dark wooden panel ceiling and wonderfully smelling bar gave it a homely feel . There was stuff everywhere - hanging, nailed and tied to every surface, with the odd bit of homely dust to go with it.

Behind the bar a large hatch showing the restaurant kitchen, with an enormous open grill, fired with scented wood emitted sumptuous smells, cracklings and hissings combined with stomach yearning vapours. The hustle and bustle of lunch preparations were well under way.

The Restaurant

Through a sloping passageway, lined floor to ceiling with wine bottles and past the ever-open kitchen door, an enormous patio opened up with cartwheel chandeliers and a vast skylight window, and of course more implements hung on display.

Is it a restaurant, hotel or museum? Well actually it’s all three, this is the dining area festooned with an agricultural past, shouting tough times and hard work. But that doesn’t stop it being absolutrely charming.

Every other table and chair was occupied, family groups of three and four generations bantered, ate and drank while arms flailed dramatically animating their words, over a long and leisurely lunch.

It was another world like an unexpected Christmas morning. A most charming and unusual environment in the, to give it its full title - Posada de Ubeda, Museo/restaurante de agricola.

Ubeda the Renaissance town was fascinating- but this place outshines even the monumental zone.

La Posada de Ubeda, C/ San Cristobal, 17 (0034) 953 790 473

See here for more about Ubeda. or it's twin town Baeza.

The copyright of the article Ubeda's Best Restaurant and Hotel in S Europe Travel is owned by Rachel L. Webb. Permission to republish Ubeda's Best Restaurant and Hotel in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.