AC Hotel Cordoba Palacio by Marriott

Class: Deluxe

Style: Modern design

Rooms: 162

This is certainly a contrast for Córdoba. Right at the edge of the historic old town, where the Moorish influence gives way to something a bit more contemporary (or at least a bit more 20th-century), the AC Córdoba Palacio is as modern as can be. Behind a weathered copper skin, this 162-room luxury both blends in and stands out: the building’s rapidly aging exoskeleton gets a jump on the patina that comes naturally to millennium-old Córdoba landmarks like the Mezquita, while the building’s clean-lined geometric form is far indeed from the city’s traditional Andalusian architectural style.

Once inside you’re treated to a fairly conventional vision of a modern luxury hotel, which is certainly no bad thing. The décor is modernist-influenced, in serious monochromes, with 20th-century design classics for furniture and heavy blackout curtains to shade late sleepers from the blazing Andalusian sun.

The hook, then, is the contrast between the very traditional town of Córdoba and the understated modernity of the AC Córdoba Palacio. You’re five minutes’ walk from the narrow alleyways of the old town, and the stunning hybrid mosque/cathedral with its forest of striped columns — but here it’s new Spanish cuisine, a rooftop pool, and the good life, modern-luxe style.