Hotel Parador de Toledo - Toledo

First time staying in a Parador and we loved it. Room was huge! View was amazing...all of Toledo! Staff was so-so...not the friendliest but it was ok. We would return just for the grounds and view if nothing else!

The parador is a lovely building in a superb location, with lovely interior. I had a spacious, comfortable room with a balcony and fine view over Toledo, as requested when I reserved. The parador is furnished tastefully with interesting furniture and decorative objects. The room's air conditioning was effective and welcome. I was happy with the accommodations but was very disappointed with the dinner, prepared by the parador chef, and its hefty price. The dining area on the terrace is beautifully situated with a view toward Toledo, but the dining experience itself was at best quite unpleasant. While the waitpersons were helpful and efficient, even delightful in the case of a nice young woman who knew a lot about the dessert menu and was communicative and charming -- the food, except dessert, was seriously disappointing, not worthy of the parador. It was basically a ripoff for the rather substantial price charged, and was without doubt one of the worst meals in its price range that I've had in Europe. The fish dish I had was very poorly conceived and prepared, ugly, tasteless and loaded with small bones. The starter, a zucchini dish, was tasteless and unattractive. Visually, neither dish was presented with care and attention. Yet Spain has much fabulous, attractive food, even in simple tapas restaurants! The exception was dessert, which was reasonably good. The shockingly sub-minimal dinner experience was aggravated by the many hungry bees that persistently buzzed around all the diners and the plates of food. This was really annoying and distracting. No measures had been taken by the parador to lure the bees away (I asked about this, they said it "was a big problem"). So, regrettably, I couldn't wait for dinner to be over, which was very disappointing, as the dining terrace view at sunset over Toledo was superb and I wanted to enjoy it and my (expensive) dinner....Suggestion: improved cuisine and a shuttle mini-bus for transport to the town.