Beautiful and clean, but we could not sleep
Zara Palace is exceptionally clean, beautifully renovated and full of character. The historic stone interior is very well done, and I was especially pleased that the room did not have strong fragrances or scented products.
Unfortunately, the air conditioning became unusable overnight. The remote would neither respond nor beep, apparently because its batteries were not working. As the room became increasingly hot and stuffy, we opened the windows to get some air. We were then kept awake by people outside at all hours from socializing to early-morning cleaning vehicles and reversing alarms. We had to close the windows because of the noise, but the room quickly became hot and stuffy again. We spent the night going back and forth between the two, with no comfortable way to sleep. The heavy comforters, with no lighter summer bedding available, made matters worse.
I was also disappointed by the host’s first response. She emphasized that she had been sleeping when we messaged at approximately 2 a.m. and made an unfounded assumption that we had changed the system to heat. We had not. By the time someone was going to inspect it, we had already checked out and the lost night could not be remedied.
This is an attractive and unusual property, but ultimately we paid for a room in which we could sleep—and we could not. The beauty and cleanliness did not compensate for the unusable air conditioning or the defensive response.