Has anyone stayed in a Padora's which is a luxury hotel run by the S?panish Govt. Do you know of any in Sevilla or Madrid. If not any recommendations for hotels in either city

Do you mean "parador"?

Ah. You mean "parador". Enter that word in the search function. Click for Spain, and you'll find lots of posts and discussions about them.
I've stayed in a few, but not in either of those cities.

Never heard of a luxury hotel in Spain run by the government and named Padora's. Like USNR remarked, there are Paradors (Pardaores), which are hotels in historical settings and hence established with government subsidies. go to www.parador.es and check if that is anywhere near what you're looking for.

Sometimes people here accuse me of being sarcastic. I find it hard to believe that anyone reading the orginal post who knows much about Spain, wouldn't know that the poster obviously meant parador, unless there is another similar name for "luxury hotel run by the Spanish government". Can't we give a poster a break once in a while? It's nice that some of you have never made a mistake with words.

Here is the link to the Paradors web site. And yes, some of the Parador can be classified as "Luxury Hotels".

http://www.parador.es/castellano/index.jsp

Amen, Patrick. I'm biting my tongue right now about another thread that one of our "experts" had to be nasty on.

Thank you Robert! That is a great website. And some of them do indeed look pretty luxury. I haven't been to Spain yet and have been thinking about looking into Paradors.

Just be aware that many of the paradores are quite small and fill up far in advance - we wanted to stay at the one on Granada - and 9 months before was too late to reserve.

One trick I learned when staying at a number of them. You can book through a US agency that just books paradors, but they will be "filled" when if you email or check with the actual parador you will find availability. Also the rates were lower booking direct than with the US parador agency.

Patrick is correct when it comes time to book a Parador, but if you are a member, an "Amigo", then you often have better luck when booking yourself. There are two excellent booking agents for the Parador system. One is located in the States, Petrabax (http://www.epetrabax.com) and the other, Totally Spain (http://www.totallyspain.com/home.asp), is located in Vitoria-Gasteiz, in the Basque Country.

Nancy,

yes, I've stayed at about 9 paradors and loved all of them. Each are unique; some are modern and some from the 15th and 16th century (which are the ones I picked).

It all depends what your preference is and the route you're travelling.

Regards,

Melodie

A book that some of you might enjoy and also find informative is "Historical Paradors" A Journey through Spanish Hotels by Juan Estava Galan. The ISBN # is 3-8290-2233-6.

I didn't see any sarcasm - just genuine confusion at reconciling the concept of govt-run paradors and luxury hotels. I know it's hard on a forum - you can't see the poster's expressions etc - but some people do seem to try very hard to see negative connotations when there is really no evidence of them. Lighten up, I say!

I just booked for 5 nights in May on the website given here. There's a special 5 day card which gets you a better rate. I don't believe there are any right in Madrid, but we're staying at one in Avila (about 40 miles away) which is supposed to be really special and Segovia (about 30 miles away). Not sure about Seville either, but you'll be able to get the information on the website.