7 Best Hotels in Cuenca, Cuenca and the Southern Highlands

This low-rise hotel has a relaxed, casual environment and feels like a resort in the city. This is the place for animal lovers: three resident alpacas munch on the grassy banks, and peacocks stroll through bushes heavy with pink and yellow roses. It's 2 km (1 mi) from the center of town, so take a taxi unless you're up for a 45-minute walk. The restaurant is famous for its fish—try the trout marinated in brandy.

Fluffy down comforters top beds—some of them canopied—in rooms with filmy curtains covering windows that look onto an indoor courtyard with a trickling fountain. A hot water bottle slipped under your covers warms your bed at night. Crystal chandeliers, antique furniture, and art give you the feeling of what life was like more than 100 years ago in this carefully preserved 1891 mansion two blocks from the central plaza. Most rooms have only showers instead of full baths. A couple of rooms have windows looking onto a lovely garden.

Convenient to most of the city's sights, this thoroughly modern eight-story hotel sits just two blocks from Parque Calderón. Rooms at the back of the hotel are quieter than those on the street side. Enjoy a meal at the Inti Sumag restaurant or the Chordeleg Café, or relax with a cocktail at the Samana piano bar. Buffet breakfast and airport transfers are included in the rate. One room is set for wheelchair access.

Here's a charming little bargain-priced hotel that sits on the Plaza San Francisco. Its seven upstairs rooms overlook a lively little café that serves típico Ecuadoran food. Each room contains hardwood floors and stone walls, and most have a little colonial wrought-iron balcony opening to the outside. Most of these overlook the bustling market on the plaza, but the commotion calms down at 6 pm each day.

This hotel overlooking the Río Tomebamba gives you the feeling of staying in a rambling country house. You climb a twisting wooden stairway to the upper rooms, which have lovely views of the river. Scattered about are numerous sitting areas that add to the familiar, homey atmosphere. The restaurant serves excellent French cuisine.

Huddled around three covered courtyards, this sunny hotel is small, but has neat and cheerfully furnished rooms, original art, and unique lighting fixtures.

In a beautifully restored building, Santa Lucía has attractive rooms, though its style is more modern than the building itself. Built by the first governor of the Azuay (Cuenca) Province in 1859, it has been in the Vintimilla family for three generations, and is in the center of the historic district. The family decided not to remove a large tree that was growing right in the middle of the courtyard. An American breakfast is included. The restaurant (–$$) has excellent service and food: choices include sea bass in marinara sauce with assorted seafood; chicken in a lemon-herb sauce; and an number of risottos and gnocchis.