SOLVASA: A Flour Among Valencian Hotels

Not many people would choose to spend their holiday in a flour factory, but then again, if Spain is different, Valencia is differenter.

Transforming a 19th century flour factory into a comfortable hotel requires a lot of imagination and a lot of bread. Fortunately Valencian architect José Plaza had the ideas and the Solvasa hotel group provided the money to prevent the destruction of Valencia’s industrial heritage and to help conserve for practical use a curiously attractive building, considering its past use, and to transform it into a delightful and original hotel close to Valencia city centre.

With its interior patio, where meals can be taken and even weddings celebrated, the Solvasa feels more like a reconverted monastery than a factory, and the fact of the matter is that a lot of effort has been put into making staying there a very unique experience, particularly considering that it is in the maritime centre of Valencia’s busy Avenida del Puerto, which went under the name of Lenin Avenue during the Civil War.

It is in fact the only building in the whole avenue with a garden at the front, where you can also sit down and enjoy a drink while others pass by in the street casting envious gazes.

Valencian artist Peris Carbonell added his own personal touch by filling the hotel with attractive paintings, which are mostly a mixture of colourful, abstract and impressionist landscapes, done on canvas, and even on skylights.

A number of suites are on offer and there is a small gym and sauna in case you got carried away at the mini-bar.

Being close both to the port and the city centre, Solvasa is ideal for business people, having as it does two large function rooms, which can be divided up into five smaller ones.

A traditional British breakfast is available for those in need of calories before the daily slaughter of mergers and acquisitions, or alternatively, they offer romantic candlelit evenings for those who are tired of talking business over their champagne, with succulent dishes from a predominantly Valencian style of cooking but with a touch of flair and imagination from their cook. Whether you use flair and imagination afterwards, is of course up to you.

The young, cheerful staff all speak English, although when I arrived and was asked if I had a ‘date’ with the manager I did think that my luck might have changed for the better for an all too brief moment.

The Solvasa Hotel is in Avenida del Puerto 129

www.solvasa.com