La Casa de la Abuela - El Mirador de Gérgal

The bigger of the two, for five people. A village house restored from top to bottom, keeping the bare stone and the original walls wherever they were worth keeping: inside there's nothing missing, and outside it's still what it always was. Three bedrooms, a big living room with a fireplace, a new kitchen and a courtyard with olive trees, which is where everyone ends up. The terrace looks out over the valley, and it's the kind where dinner runs long without you noticing because nobody's in a hurry to go inside. There's a barbecue.

It's on calle Pilanos, right in the village and not on an estate on the outskirts, with private parking at the house and a couple of doors from La Casilla: if you're two families or a big group, you can rent both at once and be eight.

Gérgal sits at the foot of the Sierra de los Filabres, half an hour from Almería and from the Tabernas Desert. The Calar Alto Observatory, the largest in continental Europe, is in the same municipality: at night, with no streetlights around, you see the stars as in very few places on the continent.

Your dog is welcome, no size limit (€15 per night per pet). Smoking is allowed outdoors only. In some photos you can see a reservoir from the terrace: it's ours, but it isn't adapted for swimming yet, so it isn't available.