Cheap flights and the house hunter

For several years in Europe we have enjoyed cheap flights. Ryanair still advertise flights starting at 'one penny', and although taxes and add-ons make the penny flight a fantasy, it's still very affordable to fly to most cities in Europe.

As you can imagine the cheap flights proved popular and the airlines expanded their fleets. New destinations and routes, some exotic, were introduced and Europe was opened up to everyone.

The cheap flights created a new type of tourist looking for a low cost second home on the coast, for weekends and holidays. Builders, developers and agents (realtors), saw an opening and new housing developments started shooting up from Portugal to Turkey and everywhere in between. Some of these coastal developments have grown and spread into large towns, completely engulfing the little fishing villages that they were once part of.

However, there is an appealing alternative, the inland village. You still get the builders and agents but the houses tend to be restored rather than new. It seems to work well.

The house below is just such a village house. Aquired for weekends and holidays, it's a two bedroom casa that has been lovingly restored. Hope you like it.

Guest bedrooms

They come in all shapes and sizes, usually smallish, but guest rooms are essential for holiday homes.

Generally they serve two purposes, a store room when there are no visitors, and a bedroom for when there are guests. The main requirement seems to be simplicity.

The amount of time and money spent on a guest room varies, depending on the owner of the house. Some guest rooms are so comfortable I would happily (temporarily) swap my own bedroom for a night in one, but others are, let's just call them plain. My own personal hate is guest rooms that dual as gyms, I would never want to sleep with an exercise machine at the foot of the bed.

From a photographers point of view, guest rooms, like small bathrooms, are best avoided, they rarely look good. But sometimes I find the exception, a guest room fit for a guest.

Over the years I've collected hundreds of photographs of these rooms, and below I present to you a selection of clean, comfortable and fresh living spaces.