Posada La Casona de Valbuena

This place is one of the best to stay in this area. It has a good quality/price ratio, the decoration and furnitures are quite new, and is very calm and quiet. The owner José María, will do everything in his hand to make your stay as smooth as possible.

Find this place it’s a little bit difficult but worth it: very friendly staff, amazing rooms, good breakfast and cozy restaurant, WiFi and parking.

Long review with lots of detail follows.  If you are short on time: avoid this place at all costs.  This one bad experience was enough to cloud a visit to a region that should be one of Spain's finest. Now the details. This is the most unwelcoming place I have ever stayed in Spain over the 5 visits I've made to the country.  The fundamental problem is that the owners are absentee and have left management of the place to cleaning staff.  The whole vibe was very unsettling.  First weird experience was that checkin was 2PM.  My wife and I arrived at 5 as we were slowly making our way enjoying the Rioja region as I'd expect residents to appreciate.  When we arrived the place was totally closed up.  We rang the bell a few times and finally some guy opened the door complaining that we were supposed to arrive at 2.  Totally unwelcoming and unfriendly.  So we headed out to try and visit wineries which were all closed.  So we brought our own food and wine back to the lovely back patio only to be kicked out after an hour because the bar was closed.  Even though it's part of the posada the we were guests in.  Even though the staff hung out for another two hours. In the morning we went down to breakfast.  Like many places in Spain there is a coffee machine.  When we used it the woman acting as staff got totally upset.  If you don't want people using it, get rid of it.  Also note the earlier review with photos of the breakfast are 100 percent accurate.  The guest did not have "the wrong hotel" as the owner tried to claim.  It was as lame as he claimed. We booked for two nights but were pretty tempted to leave early and book at the monestary for our second night. (Hint hint.) On our second night the guy running the bar kept trying to get us to pay our bill before we went to bed.  Again I'm pretty sure the owner put him up to it to make sure we didn't leave in the morning without paying. The posada owner should come into town once in a while to run their own business.