Hotel Contessa is an elegant 12-story hotel in downtown San Antonio, Texas. It is very contemporary and features a beautiful Mediterranean style. Hotel Contessa has been independently owned since its opening in late 2005 and has been named one of the Top 100 Hotels in the World by Condé Nast Traveler. The fact that all rooms are suites paired with a fantastic location right on the popular River Walk make it a perfect place for a getaway from Austin (or anywhere!).
The Feel
Hotel Contessa is extremely colorful and spacious, with a taste of luxury. The lobby area features a four-story atrium, which makes the ground floor feel extremely open and airy. Another atrium extends up throughout the hotel, so when you exit your room, you can peer over your floor's balcony to down below. As you pass through the lobby and approach the Cork Bar, there is an alcove that features a white brick bench that was once on the River Walk in the 1930s in addition to comfy couches and an outdoor patio along the river.
There are so many beautiful details everywhere, which make it feel like a boutique hotel despite its large size. There are mosaics everywhere, there are colorful, hand-blown glass flowers on the wall of the restaurant (Las Ramblas) and there is influence from Modernist Spanish artist Antoni Gaudí throughout the hotel.
River Walk and Marriage Island
The back side of Hotel Contessa is directly on the River Walk, though it is in a quiet and peaceful stretch of it. This is great because it feels very relaxing in the area around the hotel, but when you walk outside and turn left, within minutes you are in the midst of dozens of bars and restaurants, all of which are very busy and exciting at night. One thing that makes the area of the river by Hotel Contessa more quiet is that it is home to Marriage Island, also known as Wedding Island.
This small, circular land mass in the river is connected to the banks via a short walkway and is flanked by a beautiful, towering tree. Marriage Island is located right across from the hotel and is a place where hundreds of marriages are performed each year (I was told there are often several a day). It has been used for religious services since 1538, when it was first used for Catholic masses. Legend has it that couples who get married here are blessed with long and happy marriages. The island is literally just feet from the Hotel Contessa's bar and restaurant patio area. One afternoon, my guest and I were sitting on the Cork Bar patio and a small wedding took place on the island right before our eyes.
The Rooms
Hotel Contessa is unique in the fact that all of its 265 guests room are suites. Most beds have either one king bed or two double beds. The living rooms feature an interesting juxtaposition of old and new; there are modern touches, such as exposed brick and concrete, but it is decorated warmly with Spanish flavor, such as the bathroom’s wooden Spanish doors and the bright colors on the furniture upholstery. The living rooms in the suites are spacious and feature a sofa that unfolds into a bed in addition to a large television.
In my suite, the front door opened to the living room. There was a hallway that had a marble bathroom on the left and a wet bar with the mini bar on the right. At the end of the hallway was a door that opened to the roomy bedroom. Most rooms here have a view of the river, which mine did
I stayed in the bedroom, while my guest stayed on the sofa bed. It turns out that there was some space between the bottom of front door of the hotel room and the carpet. The hotel’s atrium is echoey, and she said it was a little hard to fall asleep due to the noise. She told me she ended up stuffing pillows at the bottom of the door to try to block out the noise. However, from the bedroom, I couldn’t hear a peep. The bedroom also had a door, so if I had been able to hear it, I could have shut it out by closing the door.