Don't touch my magazines: Mis vacaciones en España

I've spent the last week in a rather lovely hotel in Spain and I now feel like a whole new person! I had not had much time off between Christmas and mid July (wow that's a long time!) so I really needed these two weeks off.

For once, the temperature wasn't such a shock when we arrived in Spain thanks to the great British summertime (no sarcasm!) - I had spent a good deal of time acclimatising to the heat in advance. Yes, I had been lazing around the garden.

This first post will be about the hotel (Hotel Finca el Cerillo). Now, I love reading reviews about hotels because I love to get ideas of places to visit. But I don't want you to visit this hotel. I want you to stay away. It's horrible. I hated every sec.... nope, just can't do it. I want to discourage you from visiting purely so I can get a room next year, but it's too blinkin popular!

This hotel is absolutely fantastic. It is small (12 rooms) and feels like visiting friends. Not the 'visiting friends' where you just want to leave again and go home - it's really like an extension of your home. Most of this is down to Sue and Gordon who run the place, who have built the hotel from scratch with lots of love, and you can tell.

The hotel is a restored old farmhouse in the hills, about an hour from Malaga. The journey is up through the hills on windy roads (the only bad thing, I felt a bit car sick!) but the views are stunning. Once you arrive you are welcomed with open arms by Sue, Gordon, Sybil the dog and the cats. It's so easy to dump your bags and get straight to the pool - with a quick stop at the honesty bar to get a drink!

The view from the pool area is amazing and at the right time of year you can watch as canons are fired from the nearby town of Archez - and if there's a festival you get the midnight fireworks!

They have a library to borrow books, so many different seating areas and a new tree house! And they've got wifi!

And the food... wow. They cook every other night (so you can still visit the local villages on the other nights) and Christine produces the most amazing food. It's a fixed menu but with notice they can cater for anything!

You can read other very glowing reviews on TripAdviser and check out their website...

So here's a few (a lot) photos for you to check out...