I’ve always imagined myself retiring to a little chateau in the south of France one day. Somewhere where I can cultivate vineyards (even though I don’t drink wine) or breed horses (even though it’s been years since I last fell off a horse). My family are the descendents of Huguenots and as such, I’ve always been rather fascinated with France and its history and culture. I’ve even gone so far as to learn the language, here at the bottom of Africa, where there’s very little opportunity to converse with anyone in French.
And think about it – if I lived in France, I’d be centrally located in Europe, close to all the history and culture and sights that I love.
So it came as no surprise that when we stood beside the husk of on old burned-out house overlooking the valley of Ronda in the south of Spain, I immediately fell in love. I fell in love with the view, with the idea of buying the ruins and renovating it, with the thought of running a guest house in my own little corner of Europe. That would definitely be living the dream.
Gareth loves the idea as well. He gets excited about the thought of creating something beautiful from the debris. He wants to lay bricks, design room layouts, build cupboards and plan the garden.
Since we’ve been back, we’ve been toying with the idea of working towards this dream. We’ve tried finding the property on the internet and thought about how we would get the money together to turn it into a reality. So far, it’s been nothing more than a dream, but I think if we really wanted to, we can make it happen.
The view below would be ours. That alone will make it all worthwhile…
For more posts in the Spain 2010 series, click here.Labels: Europe, misc, Ronda, Spain
