Villa Paula

Villa Paula is a 16th-century manor house in the Valencian countryside, restored by the owning family over four years and opened to travellers for one reason: what the house earns pays for the next stage of its restoration.

Two cultures live in the building. From al-Andalus come the arches, the geometry of the patterns, the ceramic tradition of this comarca and the layout of irrigation canals that still orders the kitchen garden. From Christian Valencia come the Virgen de los Desamparados painted by hand on ceramic above the façade, two centuries old and unsigned, restored by a ceramicist who works half an hour from the estate, and the paintings in the hall of mirrors, among them several Immaculate Conceptions. The frieze around the Virgin, with its citrus fruit and horn of plenty, is where the orange blossom that identifies the house comes from.

Inside there are original artworks in each of the seven bedrooms, a collection of Valencian ceramics from the 15th to the 19th century, an 18th-century billiard table and a library of two hundred and forty volumes on Spanish and Valencian art, beside the fireplace of the main sitting room.

Around it lie seven hectares of Clemenules mandarin in production, a historic garden with a century-old fig tree and a kitchen garden that changes every few weeks. Alongside the estate runs the Acequia de Quart, one of the nine canals whose water is apportioned by the Water Tribunal of the Plain of Valencia, UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage. Its historic layout still orders this land; today the field is drip-irrigated from the house's own well, with its own solar power.

The house is let whole and always to a single group, from seven to fourteen people, with five stars from the Generalitat Valenciana. Guests are offered a Valencian paella class cooked over orange wood cut in the field, a potter's wheel with a ceramicist from the comarca, live flamenco and a walk through the kitchen garden. They are looked after in Spanish, English, French and German.