For us, this grand and very charming house sums up all that's best about rustic living.
Here you will enjoy a holiday in great comfort in one of Andalusia's most impressive mountain destinations. We also think it offers exceptional value in its prices whether there are 18 of you or just 4 people coming, and all price combinations give you private and exclusive use of the property.
You have excellence and style in accommodation, a well-preserved historic village, location in the heart of a Natural Park offering marvellous walking and exploring, and Ronda only half an hour away.
It's a real pleasure to be able to offer a house of this quality in a village as delightful as Grazalema. It's in a quiet spot on the village's edge, from where a two-minute walk through a flower-bedecked street of stately houses brings you to the old square with its restaurants and tapas bars.
The property is a real treat: warm, welcoming and very spacious. It has privacy (total), gardens (colourful and well-tended) on different levels, a splendid swimming pool (plenty large enough for proper swims) and the satisfying style of tradition in every nook and cranny.
This is also the sort of holiday villa that keeps updating itself, introducing improvements to facilities, and basically adding value to your stay here. The recent fitting of electric blinds in three of the rooms, or the works carried out to improve the showers and make them more spacious, is a good case in point.
The main entrance is through a 150-year old door to a dignified reception hall, hung with tasteful paintings.
Before we mount the staircase to the bedrooms, let's go round the common areas.
A sumptuosly furnished and luminous wood-ceilinged living room gives very ample space (a huge 75 m²) in which to spread out and relax in different reading and sitting areas. Three sofas and four armchairs are ranged round in country house style. Most of the wall is occupied by a huge window looking onto the terrace.
The dining area is on a slightly raised level. Decoration includes antiques, door lintels are handcarved and there's a fresh smell of wood polish. A glass-fronted fireplace adds to the cozy feel of the place
Alongside is a more informal breakfast or dining room. It has floor-to-ceiling glass windows and access to a fabulous terrace.
The terrace is part-shaded, part in sun and furnished for meals or just relaxing. It overlooks the swimming pool below, gardens with a large palm tree, and the views are prettiness itself: the sunlit valley and tree-hung limestone sierra. It's tremendously rugged mountain scenery.
Access to and from the kitchen, which is top-class, is convenient for all the dining areas.
There are nine bedrooms, 6 upstairs and the other three on a lower level accessed from a terrace. Thanks to the altitude, Grazalema is not usually too hot, but bedrooms do have air conditioning if required. Floors are of smooth terracotta tiling and the bedlinen is of smooth cotton.
One room (Mejorana) is separate from the rest and accessed via a spiral staircase (unsuitable for toddlers):
Outdoors, steps go down through terraces gardens to the swimming pool area and a tree-shaded garden with hammock. There are all kinds of flowering plant, both familiar and exotic, mature shrubs and trees, and a lawned area, too.
The swimming pool is generously sized and has an outdoor shower and WC. There are plenty of sunloungers and the pool area is not overlooked. Nearby is your barbecue area.
There is a second entrance to the gardens directly from the street below, where you can also park safely by and free of charge by the rural Guardia Civil (police) station.
The village of Grazalema is one of our personal favourites, a real classic amongst the pueblos blancos (white villages) of Cadiz. It is situated out on its own in the Natural Reserve of the same name, where the rambling is simply compelling.
There are plenty of walks and we will send you a sample of the best of the self-guided walks as part of your holiday information. The limestone landscape is craggy and alluring, often to be found is the rare pinsapo fir which can grow to 30 metres high.
There are caves to explore, too. Cueva del Gato (the Cat’s Cave) is a particularly fascinating introduction to the subterranean world of rivers and lakes (best explored with a guide).
You can also go horseriding, canyoning or simply picnic on the grassy banks of a lagoon 15 minutes from the villa.
The beauty of summer in Grazalema is that its elevated location in the Sierra means it is generally spared the oppressive heat of lower-lying Andalusian areas and cities. It makes nights much more comfortable. You can visit Ronda just half an hour away, or Sevilla, by day and return afterwards to the relief of the milder atmosphere of the natural parkland.
Your hosts live locally and are on hand to ensure that everything is to your satisfaction.