No Air-Conditioning!

I apologise in advance for the next bit ... air-conditioning is a bit of a "hobby horse" of ours ....

To serve our guests best, we decided not to install air-conditioning for the following reasons (in no particular order):

• The heat here is rarely humid which means it is a dry heat which is much "cooler" than the tropical type heat down on the coasts and much easier to handle. It also means we are, thankfully, virtually free of mossies as there is no water in which to breed)
• At 400 m above the sea, we generally get lovely mountain breezes: so by opening the screened French doors of the double room and those of the twin room (opposite ends of the house) a cooling air wafts through the house ... and if that fails, there are always the ceiling fans in both bedrooms and one each end of the lounge/dining room (where there are more doors to open!) There is also a powerful remote control wall fan in each bedroom ... just in case!
• Guests who are unused to using air-conditioning often do it all wrong!  All the doors and windows must be kept closed for any air-conditioning to function correctly -  which shuts you off from the lovely outdoors! The urge is usually to set the temperature far too low (17 or 18 degs) instead of 3 or 4 degs below the outside temperature.  This means instead of becoming accustomed to the heat, it's feels like a blast furnace when you step outside! So many people ruin their holidays by staying inside with air-conditioning on ...
• Last, but by no means least, there is the hygiene factor ... regrettably the maintenance of large a/c systems regarding health is not always what it should be.

We always advise our guests to "go native" when they come here: take off watches and go with the body clock.  Enjoy the morning by (and in!) the pool and when the heat comes up (about 3 or 4 pm) go and hide inside the house with its cool, tiled floors and have a siesta or watch one of the many films in the library.  Then in the evening find a shady spot (there are lots!) and enjoy a cool drink to watch the sun go down.  There's no hurry to go to bed ... just soak up the wonderful warm air - we rarely go to bed before midnight ... and often much, much later in the summer!  And if you are hot in the night, there's nothing to stop you going and having a dunk in the pool if you want to - you're on holiday! There's no need to rush around cooking elaborate meals - throw something on the BBQ and toss a ready made salad in a little olive oil - easy!  All much nicer than hiding in an air-conditioned house!!!

Take a look at the guests' comments.  There was even one who marvelled that the temperatures were over 40 degs (in the sunshine!) and it felt like the UK's high 20s!

Enough!  Back off my hobby horse .... er ... what was the question?????

Seriously, there have been so few occasions when air-conditioning would have been useful, that we decided the cons far out-weighed the pros.  Surely you want to enjoy our warmth in Spain, not hide from it?