Luxury Villa Hire near Los Pueblos Blancos

Surrounding Villa Casa Sonana you have a cluster of some of Andalucia's most beautiful mountain villages.

These are known to the Spanish as simply "Los Pueblos Blancos" (the white villages). Every year, once the spring rains have passed, their houses are meticulously whitewashed to a state of pristine splendor and the white provides a dazzling contrast to the brightly coloured flowers which fill the streets. This annual white-washing is almost a pagan act, ushering in the season of growth and fertility and saying 'hasta la vista' to the winter.

In many of these white villages, new bodegas have opened, mountain paths have been way marked and the area is being touted as 'the new Tuscany'.

What makes these "pueblos blancos" a double treat is that few concessions have been made to 'mainstream' tourism. These are villages that seem to demand that you slow down a pace or two. After all, one of the most popular sayings here is 'how wonderful it is to do nothing and then to rest afterwards'! Life tends to revolve around the local bar and the local sell-everything shops. Don't expect people to be in a rush to serve you but do expect to be treated with the grace and generosity that so marks Spain and its Andalucian character.

Immediately on your doorstep, you have the white village of Arriate, a typical Andalucian pueblo famous for its sausages and its Semana Santa processions. Populated by bars and cafes too numerous to mention, Arriate is a friendly slice of real Andalucian country life.

Within an hour's drive of Casa Sonana, there must be two dozen unspoilt white villages, each of them offering something different.

Grazalema, in the heart of the national park that bears its name. Setinil de las Bodegas, this town grew out of a network of caves in the cliffs and some houses have olive groves on their roofs. Zahara de la Sierra, with its Moorish castle perched high above the town; Arcos de la Frontera, strung out along a 400ft-high ridge, its churches and alcazar dominating the skyline for miles.

Cortes de la Frontera, surrounded by cork groves, and the most famous place in the area, the delightful village of Gaucín Montejaque, perched on the mountainside overlooking the fertile olive groves below, and Benaoján, which is close to a famous cave, the Cueva de la Pileta, with some impressive prehistoric cave paintings and rock formations of stalagtites and stalagmites.

A favourite is Zahara de la Sierra, on the edge of Grazelama National park, one of the prettiest Pueblos Blancos within an easy 30 minute drive from the luxury of Casa Sonana. Make sure you lunch here under the orange trees in the plaza, a most highly recommended way to spend an afternoon.

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