But there was room in the stable...

This was to be our home for our second week in Andalucia - a former donkey stable called Casa Platero. I didn't know this, but Platero was the donkey in a book called "Platero y yo" (Platero and I); apparently a popular work by Juan Ramón Jiménez.

Casa Platero was on the Finca Buenvino estate, near the town of Aracena in the Sierra Morena, north-west of Seville. A beautiful estate run as rural holiday accommodation by a very nice couple Sam and Jeanie Chesterton. Somewhat immodestly showing off my encyclopaedic knowledge of historic architecture, I enquired of Sam when their beautiful Italiante villa dated from. "We built it 30 years ago" he replied......... I changed the subject.