First the good news. This is a hotel in a beautiful castle (XIV-XVII centuries) with great views over the village of Illueca and surrounding attractive hills of Zaragoza province. It has it´s own bar and restaurant which serves decent evening meals (with red wine from nearby Cariñena), and the half board price is a good deal. It lies about halfway between Madrid and Barcelona, so is a good one-night stopover. The rooms are modern - ours was a trifle small but ok, with good views and very quiet. The bad news? Well, as is often the case, the devil is in the detail. The bed was uncomfortable, especially the pillows, which made a good night´s sleep (for us at least) impossible. There were lots of annoying flies in the bar and, especially, with the breakfast. The breakfast, even ignoring the flies, was meagre - one of the worst I have had in Spain. With so little extra effort, this place could be so much better. If there are flies all over the place, why do they leave the buffet food open without cover? Why do they serve such cheap juice - better none at all. I don´t know whether I would recommend it or not, but will say yes (unenthusiastically) because the building is so fine and in the hope that they change those pillows and improve the breakfast! The village below does not seem to merit much attention, apart from the church immediately below the castle which has great mudejar decoration inside.

At first we were surprised to find out this hotel was not in the city of Zaragoza, but in the Spanish province of Zaragoza. Then our GPS led us up a narrow, steep, unpaved back road at night. But with our first view of the front of this former papal palace, lit up and overlooking the valley below, we loved it. Sure, the elevator makes peculiar noises, and I have trouble with stairs, but we enjoyed our one-night stay here immensely. We had a snack at the bar when we arrived in the late afternoon/early evening, then had dinner in the dining room. Breakfast was also served in the dining room and did not disappoint us. We are Canadians, and our country just doesn't have 15th century buildings, so we were thrilled, and would recommend this place to anyone who wants a beautiful out-of-the-way hotel in Aragon. Castillo Papa Luna was a wonderful start to our week's drive through Spain.