Another outpost of the Hospes group, a series of five-star boutique hotels across Spain, the Amerigo chooses Alicante as its home. Once a Dominican convent, later an office building and an apartment block, today it’s a bit closer to its original incarnation, offering the sort of creamy-white ascetic-luxe experience that is the Hospes group’s specialty.

Ten minutes west of Palma, perched at the edge of the Mediterranean, this stately old building was once a grand residence, and still radiates an aristocratic elegance. Today it’s the Hotel Hospes Maricel & Spa, a luxury boutique hotel with quite a bit more in common with its former life as a private home than with the typical luxury hotel.

It seems unlikely that any hotel could make good on a promise to shield its guests from the electrifying din of Seville’s flamenco-tinged street life. Las Casas del Rey de Baeza, though, accomplishes this, and a bit more.

It’s time the world discovered there’s more to urban Spain than Barcelona and Madrid: Spain’s third city is heating up, with travelers from the UK in particular discovering Valencia in record numbers, and budget airlines scrambling to establish routes from all over Europe.

Somewhere in the middle ground between history worship and idol-smashing avant-gardism lies a place like the Palacio de los Patos. In frontal view, it’s a 19th-century palace, utterly authentic, marble staircase and all; behind this, though, stands a brand-new modern addition — not the sort of dismal annex that mars an otherwise gorgeous historic hotel, but a stunning and urbane piece of modern-luxe hotel design.

The Palacio del Baílio is the Córdoba branch of the Hospes franchise, and while the word “Palacio” may put some of us in mind of an old-fashioned grand hotel — like the seaside palaces of Cannes, for example — this is a palace of an entirely different kind. More a mansion than a hotel, it’s equal parts hacienda and Moorish manor, with some rooms opening onto ancillary patios, and others in the main building ringing the main courtyard, with its majestic old palms and pleasantly cool outdoor swimming pool.

It took a while, but the Hospes group has moved into the capital. The patented Hospes formula (classic building, modern-luxe interiors, signature spa and restaurant) is on display in this classic 19th-century building just off the Plaza de la Indepencia, deep in the heart of Madrid.

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