FINCA CORTESIN w QUINTESSENTIALLY TRAVEL

I may have mentioned before, that the end of our Spanish holiday was spent at a 5* hotel, which was part of a bundle of goodies I'd won. What actually happened was about 8 months ago I signed up to receive Quintessentially Travel's newletter. I forgot all about it, until a few months later when I received this in my inbox:

I couldn't quite believe it and emailed the lady back straight away, but sure enough, I had won!! I had until June this year to take the 2 nights at Finca Cortesin so booked them for a couple of weekends ago and then planned our Andalucian trip around it.

Our holiday so far had been pretty amazing anyway, but the 2 nights at the hotel just blew us away.

We arrived at Finca Cortesin having driven from Cadiz, through the National Park then down to the coast, past Gibraltar, and along the Costa del Sol until we reached our destination. We jumped out of the car, our luggage was taken to our room and the car whisked away to a secret hiding place, to make room for all the supercars they park outside reception. We headed onto the terrace for a welcome drink, pinching ourselves all the time that this was real and not some sort of dream.

Having drunk our welcome bubbles we were taken to our room. I'd won 2 nights in a junior suite, and this is what (part of) the room looked like - the bed was the size of 2 double beds together...

It was gorgeous, and had a balcony looking out into the finca's grounds and the mini mountains beyond.

The hotel is 2km uphill from the beach, and has its own golf course, which I think attracts a lot of their guests. We definitely weren't there for golf though, but luckily the hotel also has a private beach and beach club just down the hill. It's a bit of a trek from the actual hotel, but they've got that covered - there's a shuttle Mercedes to take you to and from the beach whenever you desire.

We arrived at the beach club on our first day, and soon decided this was where we'd spend the rest of our weekend. We were super lucky, as the beach club had only just opened for the Summer season so we pretty much had the place to ourselves.

We grabbed one of the large beds that surrounds the pool for ourselves, ordered some cocktails and lounged around until the sun went down.

That evening we decided to venture to the nearest village from the hotel. We got a cab down to Sabinillas, a couple of kms West of the hotel, and found an Argentinian steak house for some food (I know - not quite the tapas we had in mind, but it was busy and right on the beach!). Sizzling prawns came for starter:

Followed by steak served straight off the grill:

We totally over ordered, so sat and slowly worked our way through the steak, while watching the sun go down, a flock of flamingos fly past and the colours change over the water. After a quick shop stop off to pick up the worst smelling suncream I've ever bought (which went straight in the bin before leaving Spain) we headed back to the hotel for one of the most relaxing night's sleep I've had in a while.

The next morning I went down to the terrace for a wonderful breakfast. There was bread, pastries, fruit, ham, cheese, vanilla yoghurt, really good coffee, and proper tea (much to the boy's delight).

 

The swimming pool at the beach club wasn't warm when we were there so I had a swim at the hotel's indoor pool before heading back down to the beach for the day. It was glorious - no one else around, just swimming and peace!

But the sun was shining and the beach club was calling again, so we jumped in the Merc to be driven back to the beach, where we spent all day again, lounging, drinking cocktails, reading and listening to music.

We did manage to remove ourselves from the loungers for a brief lunch at the club's restaurant. Sadly I didn't get any photos of our lunch, but it was really good, fresh food. I had a plate of clams, while the boy went for a burger. The menu had something for everyone - truly British dishes for those that wanted, or locally caught fish prepared in a more Spanish style - all served under the wicker roof, that kept the strong mid afternoon sun off.

We had such an excellent, relaxing time at Finca Cortesin, so thank you very much Quintessentially Travel for sending us there! We hope to be back soon - I can dream!