Resources on Villas in Spain for Sale

Luxury Villas in Spain for Sale

Your Dream Villa

For sure it is a beautifully designed home with many impressive and unique attributes. It should embody the inside/outside living style of the Caribbean with its own tropical lush gardens filled with palm trees, hibiscus and wild orchids -- in addition, a private water front dock, with steps to the sea, surrounded by powder white beach sand. The villa has three to five master bedrooms and one or two junior bedrooms, all with facilites en suite. There are two spectacular swimming pools--one on grade made of stone, one elevated and secluded. All master bedrooms have spectacular views of the Caribbean Sea--as do the living areas, outside verandas and master kitchen. In addition, the property has its own tennis court and stand alone car garage, wherby the entire estate is built on minimum one acre of land, all enclosed by beautiful stone walls.

This is a dream - isn't it?

Villas

A villa was originally a Roman country house built for the upper class. According to Pliny the Elder, there were two kinds of villas, the villa urbana, which was a country seat that could easily be reached from Rome (or another city) for a night or two, and the villa rustica, the farm-house estate, permanently occupied by the servants who had charge generally of the estate, which would center on the villa itself, perhaps only seasonally occupied. There were a concentration of Imperial villas near the Bay of Naples, especially on the Isle of Capri, at Monte Circeo on the coast and at Antium (Anzio). Wealthy Romans escaped the summer heat in the hills round Rome, especially around Frascati (cf Hadrian's Villa). Cicero is said to have possessed no fewer than seven villas, the oldest of which was near Arpinum, which he inherited. Pliny the Younger had three or four, of which the example near Laurentium is the best known from his descriptions.

Renaissance villas
In 14th and 15th century Italy, a 'villa' once more connoted a country house, sometimes the family seat of power like Villa Caprarola, more often designed for seasonal pleasure, usually located within easy distance of a city. The first examples of Renaissance Villa dates back to the age of Lorenzo de' Medici, and they are mostly located in the Italian region of Tuscany (the "Medici villas") such as the Villa di Poggio a Caiano by Giuliano da Sangallo (begun in 1470) or the Villa Medici in Fiesole (since 1450), probably the first villa created under the instructions of Leon Battista Alberti, who theorized in his De re aedificatoria the features of the new idea of villa. From Tuscany the idea of villa was spread again through Italy and Europe.

Excerpt of "Villa." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 21 Oct 2006, 16:21 UTC. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 27 Oct 2006 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Villa&oldid=82831165

Image from "Image:Villa_Medici_a_Fiesole_1.jpg" Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 27 Oct 2006 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Villa_Medici_a_Fiesole_1.jpg

Spain

Spain, officially the Kingdom of Spain (Spanish: Reino de Espana,short Espana), is a country located in Southern Europe, with two small exclaves in North Africa, politically organized as a parliamentary monarchy. It is the largest of the three sovereign nations that make up the Iberian Peninsula—the others are Portugal and the microstate of Andorra.

To the west and to the south of Galicia, Spain borders Portugal. To the south, it borders Gibraltar and, through its cities in North Africa (Ceuta and Melilla), Morocco. To the northeast, along the Pyrenees mountain range, it borders France and the tiny principality of Andorra. It also includes the Balearic Islands in the Mediterranean Sea, the Canary Islands in the Atlantic Ocean and a number of uninhabited islands on the Mediterranean side of the strait of Gibraltar, known as Plazas de soberanía, such as the Chafarine islands, the isle of Alborán, the "rocks" (peñones) of Vélez and Alhucemas, and the tiny Isla Perejil. In the northeast along the Pyrenees, a small exclave town called Llívia in Catalonia is surrounded by French territory.

The name Spain (Espana in Spanish) comes from the Latin name Hispania.
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Due to Spain's own geographical situation which allows only its northern part to be in the way of the Jet Stream's typical path and due to its own orographic conditions, its climate is extremely diverse. It can be roughly divided in the following areas:

• The Northern and Eastern Mediterranean coast (Catalonia, Northern half of the Land of Valencia and the Balearic islands): Warm to hot summers with relatively mild to cool winters. Precipitations averaging 600mm. a year. These show an average Mediterranean climate.
• The South East Mediterranean coast (Alicante, Murcia and Almería): Hot summers and mild to cool winters. Very dry, virtually sub-desertic, rainfall as low as 150mm a year in the Cabo de Gata which is reported to be the dryest place in Europe. These areas qualify mostly as Semiarid climate in terms of precipitation.
• Southern Mediterranean coast (Málaga area and Granada's coastal part): Warm summers, very mild winters. Average yearly temperatures close to 20 degrees celsius and wet. Close to Subtropical climate.
• The Guadalquivir valley (Seville, Cordoba): Very hot and dry summers and mild winters. Relatively dry climate.
• South West Atlantic coast (Cadiz, Huelva): Pleasant summers, very mild and temperate winters. Relatively wet climate.
• The inner land plateau: Cold winters (depending mostly on altitude) and hot summers, close to the Continental climate. Relatively dry weather (400-600mm per year).
• Ebro Valley (Zaragoza): Very hot summers, cold winters. Also close to the Continental climate. Dry in terms of precipitations.
• Northern Atlantic coast or "Green Spain" (Galicia, Asturias, Coastal Basque country): A very wet climate (averaging 1000mm. a year, some spots over 1200mm.), with mild summers and mild to cool winters. These show mostly an Oceanic climate.
• The Pyrenees: overall wet weather with cool summers and cold winters, the highest part of it has an Alpine climate.
• The Canary Islands: Subtropical climate in terms of temperature, being these mild and stable (18 °C to 24 °C; 64 °F to 75 °F) throughout the year. Desertic in the Eastern islands and moister in the westernmost ones. According to a study carried out by Thomas Whitmore, director of research on climatology at the Syracuse University (USA), the city of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria enjoys the best climate in the world.

Excerpt from "Spain." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 30 Oct 2006, 13:18 UTC. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 30 Oct 2006 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Spain&oldid=84612737