If we were ever to live abroad, it would definitely be Spain. We spent our holidays here for years in a row. In spring or autumn we would discover all corners of Spain with a car and caravan and in the winter we would go to our beloved island Tenerife.
Spain also felt a bit like “light emigration”. It is not a completely different culture, but simply European. It is also not that far away and easy to reach by plane or car. And the healthcare is on the same level as in the Netherlands. The country was not strange due to the many visits and the climate is wonderful.
So Spain would be it.
But yes, Spain is big. Where did we want to live?
Our beloved Tenerife was the first option. We decided that we did not want to live on an island. It gives a kind of limitation to our sense of freedom. It is too limited.
The interior would certainly not be it, although we would love to visit Madrid and the surrounding area. Too cold in the winter
The south is great, especially because of the long spring and autumn season. But the summers are scorching hot there! Even we suffered from the heat there. North-West Spain was also out of the question because of the heavy rainfall there.
We also discussed Barcelona and its surroundings in detail; we knew this area best and it is also easily accessible from the Netherlands by car, but the winters can be changeable,
And then came Valencia. Perfect! It is located about halfway through Spain, still easily accessible by car (about 1,800 km from the Dutch border) and we found the climate ideal, both in summer and winter.
The Valencia region has three provinces: Castellón, Valencia and Alicante. In the end, we mainly searched in the province of Valencia.
What were we looking for? Close to nature, but also not too far from an airport (maximum half an hour's drive).
In August 2018, we went to Spain again by car and caravan. This time not only for the holiday, but also to discover where we would like to live.
Marco had a list of houses near Ontinyent. The nature there is beautiful and the landscape wonderfully rugged, exactly what we like.
But it is more than an hour's drive to an airport, and the villages felt very quiet.
During that search we discovered what we really found important. Living in a remote area sounds nice, but we wanted a good access road. And a lively village appealed to us more than a place where almost nothing happens.
After a week and a half in Ontinyent we drove towards Valencia. The first day we went straight into the city. We were immediately sold. We wanted to live close to it. The atmosphere, the people, the architecture - everything felt good. We had been here before during a holiday, but now we looked at it with different eyes. It felt like coming home.
From that moment on we focused our search on the area around Valencia.
In the weeks that followed we visited a number of houses. The last house we looked at was in Turís. We did not immediately fall in love, but we saw the possibilities: enough space for 3-4 guest rooms, a shared kitchen, and an upper floor where we would have our own privacy. There was even a swimming pool and space for a yurt as a workshop space.
Yet we had doubts. The neighbours had a clear view of our land from their higher ground.
That didn't really give us a sense of privacy.
At home we kept thinking, fantasising and making plans. We decided to go back to take another good look at this house. We wanted to meet the neighbours and see if we could do something about that privacy.
On the first day of that second trip we immediately had an appointment for the house in Turís. We immediately took all the measurements of the house and looked at the possibilities to create privacy. We saw possibilities, but also disadvantages. We let it sink in for a while.
Marco had seen another house on the estate agent's website. He wanted to view it, it touched something in him.
And so, on Monday afternoon 26 November 2019, we stood for the first time on the site that is now called Villa de la Tierra.
Within five minutes we knew: this is it! Everything was right. Goosebumps. We didn't want to leave.
On Friday, November 30, we made an offer during a second viewing. The owner, José Antonio, was a bit taken aback, but said yes within ten minutes. He wanted to sell the house to us.
And so we bought our dream house in the hills of Montserrat, near Valencia.
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