Hola from Los Angeles~!

I am coming to Spain for a last minute project May 1, and traveling to Seville May 4 by Renfe to cover the festival. Unfortunately, our hotel reservation got messed up and I now need to find a hotel open to hosting journalists (as I work on a fixed budget and am a freelance writer/editor on three assignments with three magazines). Since all the hotels we looked at in city center are booked for the festival, can you please suggest:

Nice hotels outside the city center (i.e. residential sections of Seville, or suburbs accessible by bus)

Small towns near Saville located on the RENFE train route or a short bus ride from the city center, like Carmona, and decent hotels there?

You can check out my materials and tear sheets at ElyseGlickman.com...any guidance would be appreciated. The tourism board here in L.A. has been helpful in the past, but they have more limits as to how much they can assist journalists than they did back in 2004 when I first worked with them.  Rest assured, they are nice people, and quite instrumental in helping me establish my travel writing career many years ago.

All the best,

Elyse Glickman

PS -On behalf of my colleague, who's coming a bit earlier to Spain on April 24 for a conference, can you recommend hotels in Madrid that may be open to press comps or discounts?  Thanks! She's looking on her own through her own sources--and is quite good at securing things--, but I thought I would try to help her out. She also asked me about things to do in town, though my experience is food focused, and hers is slanted more toward fashion.