This year Mags and I booked to stay in a rural hotel in Spain. In the mountains 130km from the airport. That’s about all we knew on booking. Something of an unknown adventure.
We have done loads of walking, scrambled up the sides of a ravine, swum in a mountain reservoir and shared in the summer festival. But far and away the most memorable and impressive thing in the holiday has been the couple who run the hotel.
Just under a year ago they swapped two high powered technical careers to move to the remote, under populated countryside. They took up an opportunity to run the local hotel in a village where they wanted people to run the establishment but also have children to populate the tiny school.
They fitted the bill! Now their 8 children provide 2 thirds of the school roll!
During the week, they suggested that instead of eating dinner in the hotel we could go along to the buffet, dance and bingo in the village. We went willingly and had a great time. 400 people of all ages having a great time. We enjoyed the beef stew, the fresh melon, the local unlabelled wine and the conversations. We ended up dancing to Tom Jones’ ‘It’s not unusual’ sung in English with a Spanish accent. We dipped out of the bingo – we do have our limits!
In talking to our hosts later, we realised that they are on a mission, a mission to save and grow their adopted village. The hotel is one of the biggest businesses in the locality. Their welcome warm, their passion infectious and their aims ambitious.
We asked how running a hotel all year worked for their children and when they got a break. They replied this life is good for the children they don’t need a holiday.
Towards the end of a holiday Mags and I asked ourselves; “Would we come back here?” This time we said we might, just to see how our new friends are getting on.
Graham Brownlee, August 2017