3 of a kind

Environmentally-friendly hotels

CORTIJADA LOS GÁZQUEZ

La Hoya de Carrascal, Velez Blanco 04830, Almeria Spain, 0044-2031372096, losgazquez.com

Cortijada Los Gázquez sits 1,000m above sea level, in a mountainous national park in Andalucia, on a level with golden eagles. The hotel is carbon neutral and off grid, taking its power from solar and wind energy, and a wood-burning stove. Everything on site is recycled – rain water is harvested from the roof, waste water is managed through reed beds and grey water is used for irrigation. The hotel has been converted from five farmhouses in a modern style that has respected the original structures.

The hotel is owned by two artists – Simon and Donna – who grew up in England and moved out here after falling in love with Spain on their honeymoon, and courses in art and design are offered.

Rooms: There are six double rooms (two of which are twins), and two of them have mobility access. Singles cost €60 and doubles are €85. Lunch costs €10 and dinner is €18. But if you wish to volunteer with, for instance, reed bed maintenance, wood collection, rainwater harvesting and gardening, you will get bed and board. You can also apply for an artist’s residency in a separate studio. In return, artists are asked to open their studio to other guests and discuss their work, and to donate a piece of work on completion of the residency.

BIO UND NATIONALPARKHOTEL HELVETIA

Schmilka Nr 11, 01814 Bad Schandau, Ortsteil Schmilka, Sächsische Schweiz, 00-49-35022-92230, hotelhelvetia.de

You can arrive at this hotel by ecological means because it is right on a cycle path running through the east of Germany and across the Czech border. The hotel is organic and is on its way to becoming more ecological.

It has started with four bedrooms – known as “ecological comfort rooms” – which have wooden and sandstone furniture and timber walls, giving them a gorgeous resinous scent that resonates with cosiness and healthy air quality. This is enhanced by the lack of “electric smog”: special fuse boxes and graphite paint have been used to guard against magnetic and electrical fields, which, according to the hotel, affects our nervous system, can upset heart rhythms and play havoc with sleep.

There are no televisions or wireless phones in the rooms and no metal beds either as these attract electric fields to our bodies, they say. Instead, beds are timber, mattresses are latex and quilts are filled with goose down and millet. The hotel uses vegetables and herbs from its own organic garden, it washes with eco-friendly detergents, and uses electricity from ecological sources.

Rooms There are 22 rooms either looking over the river Elbe or the wooded, rocky countryside. There are four ecological rooms, two with a balcony. Most rooms are doubles and some have a sofa bed too. Standard rooms cost from €64.50 for a double and ecological comfort rooms are from €79.50.

COOPERSHILL

Riverstown, Co Sligo, Ireland. Tel: 071-916 5108, coopershill.com

We used to be so green, back before we had chemicals and plastics and wired our homes to receive finite fuels, and some of the eco-friendly measures at the 18th century Coopershill Country House Hotel in Sligo hark back to the stately pile’s origins.

Public rooms are heated with fires using windblown wood from the surrounding 500-acre estate (where they’ve just planted 6,000 more trees). Meanwhile, all electricity – via Airtricity – comes from renewable resources, while lightbulbs are being replaced, blow by blow, by low-energy versions.

Much of the food in the restaurant comes from the land too – including venison. Otherwise food is bought locally and, as a last resort, nationally. Vegetable waste gets composted, or is given to deer and sheep, while their stablemates get to sleep on recycled newspaper. The hotel also has recycling bins onsite.

Rainwater is collected and mixed with the estate’s spring water and filtered to use, while waste water is run through reed beds. It goes to show that luxury and environmental friendliness can live together well.

Rooms All rooms are furnished with antiques. Tea- and coffee-making facilities, free mineral water and newspapers are standard. Rooms have four-poster or canopy beds and en suites with showers and roll-top baths. Most are double rooms but there are twins too, one with 4ft wide beds. Prices from €198 per room with BB; special offers available.