Checking In: a haven of old-world charm in one of Madrid’s loveliest neighbourhoods

In any capital city, it is easy enough to find sprawling hotels that offer an impersonal, global style of luxury, but harder to find those that offer a real sense of place and personality. For the latter, it’s often best to look to smaller, independent properties, and so it proves in Madrid. The boutique Urso Hotel & Spa is just such a place, with 78 rooms spread across the floors of a beautiful Beaux-Arts mansion at the northern end of the city’s historic centre.

The setting is hard to beat – many of the city’s best restaurants and bars are moments away in the lively Chueca district, and a ten-minute walk will bring you to the grand Retiro neighbourhood and the Golden Triangle of Madrid’s great art museums, the Prado, the Reina Sofia Museum and the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum. Just to stroll out of the hotel and explore the densely-packed streets to the south is a pleasure, with tapas bars, interesting shops, and bakeries galore. To the north is the affluent Chamberí district, long home to many of the city’s aristocratic residents and a great place to explore if you want to be slightly off the main tourist trails. Madrid is undoubtedly a city where walking is the best way to get around, and Urso makes it wonderfully easy to do that.

The atmosphere of the hotel is quiet and civilised, its elegant lobby with chinoiserie panels, comfortable sofas and bookshelves setting the scene. While the aesthetic is largely cool and contemporary, the building has plenty of history. Designed by the distinguished architect José María Mendoza Ussía, it was initially the headquarters of the paper company Papelera Española, and still retains plenty of original features, including the glorious stained glass window that allows light to flood into the marble stairwell at the back of the building and the wood-panelled boardroom that now serves as a private dining room.