Snow in Juviles

Despite good snow higher up in the Sierra Nevada where the ski resort is, there hasn't been much white stuff at our altitude so far this winter.  Yesterday, though, the snow came down to meet us.

Thanks to Abi for sending me the shot.  We won't get a chance to visit our house till Easter, although we've got guests from Yorkshire arriving in a couple of weeks, who may be in time for some snow.

Under the hammer

I've just started to use a feature on Pure Holiday Homes called Bidango.  It's like eBay for accommodation - I offer a specified week in our house to the highest bidder, and there's a reserve, a closing date and a buy-it-now price. I'm just experimenting with a couple of weeks to see if there's any interest, but I suspect we're too cheap. Under this system, you could 'win' a £300 week for £200 or something, which hardly seems worth the uncertainty. (Whereas if I could get a three-grand-a-night Bond villain's lair for forty quid, I'd get quite excited by the prospect even if it was located somewhere I didn't want to go.) Mind you, on eBay people regularly pay more for useless old tat than they would for nice new stuff from John Lewis - something to do with the psychology of bidding - so it'll be interesting to see what happens.

Anyway, if you're reading my blog, I'll discount the price just for asking - at least outside of main holiday periods.  We've got about five weeks booked for 2012 at this stage - which isn't bad, as I don't think we had anything before Christmas last year - but we could do with more.  NB: I'm putting in an extra single bed, so from about March it'll sleep six. 

The best snow in Europe just now..?

Well, that might be pushing it, but while the Alps are suffering with a lack of the white stuff, our own Sierra Nevada opened this weekend with more piste (40kms) than ever before at this time of year. The season's been getting steadily longer and better since we've been coming to the Alpujarra - about eight years - during which global warming has wreaked havoc with the ski industry hundreds of miles north. Here, where you can see Africa on a clear day, no operator is going to give you a guarantee of great snow, but it's getting more dependable every year. Here's a shot from local paper Ideal, showing the first skiers to venture out this year. (They're not going to win awards for photography at Ideal, I'm afraid.) Our house is not for a single-minded skiing holiday, as it's an hour's drive to the slopes, but for a mixed trip which combines winter sports with, say, walking, visiting the Alhambra and a day on the beach, it would be perfect.

This is one of the few places in the world where you really can ski in the morning and swim (comfortably) in the sea in the afternoon of the same day. If you're at our place, you're about half way between the two, as well as close to Granada and surrounded by great scenery in every direction.

Welcome Huelvans

We won't be in our lovely house in Juviles for Christmas this year, as we're going to Mexico instead. (I know it sounds extravagant, but it will be the first long-haul we've done since we embarked on restoring the house back in 2006. And we booked it months ago, when I was getting loads of work...) So we're delighted to have accepted a booking from a family from Huelva, who are arriving Christmas eve (Nochebuena) and staying till after New Year's Eve (Nochevieja). I just hope they have some idea of just how cold it can be between the Noches at an altitude of 1,250m.

Huelva is the Andalucian province - the capital city has the same name - that butts onto Portugal, in the far West of the community. It's quite a long way for our guests to come, despite being still in the same general region - probably a six hour drive or more. An interesting city little visited by foreign tourists, Huelva was heavily influenced by the British industrialists of the Rio Tinto mining concern in the late 19th century. Amongst other achievement, the Brits founded the first football club in Spain here - Recreativo de Huelva is still the oldest professional team in the country - and built a remarkable garden suburb reminiscent of Port Sunlight or Letchworth. Here's a shot of a typical street in Barrio Reina Victoria - or Queen Victoria District - it's only the Spanish street lights that give it away. What was home-from-home for British mining engineers in the 1890s is now a predictably gentrified corner of a modern Spanish city.

Meat is murder. Tasty, tasty murder.

I'm linking here to a blog entry about being a vegetarian in Andalusia. There's no disguising the fact that it's tough. I eat meat, and love it, but even I find the ubiquity of pig flesh round these parts a bit much at times. There's no problem if you're self-catering in a lovely property like ours, with a nice big fridge, excellent cooking facilities and some decent chef's knives (not something you can bet on in the average holiday rental). The availability of wonderful fruit and veg, delicious fresh eggs and an excellent variety of pulses, nuts and dairy make meat-free cooking easier even than in Northern Europe. The problems start when you eat out, and for most visitors, eating out is a major element of a holiday.

The problem is that barring a few classic dishes like pisto (something like ratatouille) and pimientos de padrón (fried baby peppers, above), Spaniards assume that the addition of a little meat or fish is necessarily an improvement to anything, for everyone. So although soups, tortillas and salads may look harmless and veggie-friendly on paper, there's always a high likelihood that some ham or tuna will be strewn over the top, or some meat-and-bone-based stock will have made its way in at an early stage of preparation. It doesn't even always help if you say you don't eat meat: "no como carne" means "I don't eat meat", but to an Andalusian it kind of means "I don't want a rare steak right this moment". They won't think you mean ham, or black pudding, or pork fat.

Then there are tapas, without which a visit to Spain would be unthinkable to many, including those who reject animal flesh. In most provinces of the country, you pay for and specify what you want when you get tapas. Not in these parts. Here in Granada they're free with your drink, and you get what you're given. It might be snails, it could be cod, but the chances are it'll be something that used to be part of a pig.

All is not lost, though, meat-dodgers. Every bar will have some cheese, olives, eggs. And they'll be happy to give you a tapa without meat. I suggest you learn how to say you'd like a cheese or egg tapa - la tapilla ¿puede ser de queso? should do it - and remember that you have to specify it as you order your beer or wine. Otherwise it'll be too late, and it'll be black pudding.

Pure dead brilliant?

Just renewed our listing on PURE Holiday Homes' website. The house has been there for a year and we haven't had so much as a single enquiry from it, but they dropped the price to about £30 in a desperate attempt to get us to stay on. The site looks great and I think it's potentially useful, but like all the rest it's aimed squarely at mainstream resort-style holiday homes rather than places like ours - a proper house in a real community. There's no means on the site to search for the Alpujarra or Granada, for example. Just 'Rural Andalucia'... which hardly narrows it down.

Anybody know of a website for people who are looking for a genuine unspoilt rural experience, rather than a kiddy-on resort holiday? Let me know.

Looks like we'll miss the figs this year

I'm extremely disappointed. We have to call off a planned visit to Juviles for a week from October 15th, which is the half-term holiday in Glasgow, and this means we're unlikely to get there again until Easter next year. This is a wonderful season in the Alpujarra. This time last year we enjoyed some fantastic walks, saw lots of interesting wildlife and, amongst other pleasures, ate lots of free figs and chestnuts.

So, our house is unexpectedly available to rent. As it's short notice, we'd accept a reasonable offer for rent. Get in touch if you fancy it. Oh, and as the English half-term is coming up soon, together with a few Spanish puentes, now's the time to book for later in the month too.