2015 Year in Review

bed and breakfast accommodation with pool

Villa Florencia Gandia 2015 has been a busy year for us all at Villa Florencia, with a constant succession of guests both old and new. This marks our 9th full year of welcoming visitors into our home and it is great to see so many of them coming back to us year after year. Our general mix of guests this year was very much along the usual lines, with a large number coming (not surprisingly) for the sunshine and warmth that is not to be found in the northern parts of Europe so easily, but also many coming for a variety of other reasons. Over the years we have been able to promote ourselves to certain “niche” markets that all help to make Villa Florencia an appealing place to stay and enjoy what the local area has to offer The year started with beautiful weather – which developed into a very hot summer – and this early sunshine encouraged our first rock-climbing visitors to stay with us. The whole area of the Costa Blanca is a well-known destination for climbers in the cooler months of the year and it is always a pleasure to have them stay with us here….

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Golf Holidays in Spain

Golf Holidays in Spain – twice over! We were delighted to welcome Frank and his family from Belgium, who had booked themselves to stay with us for two nights. They had spent some time in Valencia and wanted to sample some of the countryside of the northern Costa Blanca as a contrast to the bustle of the city. They were then going to be travelling a little further south for a couple more nights, before returning to Belgium. They arrived on Tuesday and had reserved a double room for themselves and our triple room for their family, who were in their early twenties. They settled in to their rooms and spent the rest of the day in the gardens and the pool enjoying the beautiful summer weather we are now having. They expressed an interest in golf and were delighted to hear that the lovely La Galiana Golf course is within easy reach. They are all keen golfers, but were not aware of the existence of this new course as it did not appear in the golfing guidebook they had been referring to. It was therefore probably with a certain degree of trepidation that they set off the next day…

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Short Breaks to Spain

Short Breaks to Spain It is always a pleasure when past guests come back to see us again, and this week John and Jacqui did exactly that – they had visited us last September, and decided to return to us for an early summer Short Breaks to Spain. Last year they stayed with us for only one night as they were on their way to their villa they own in Estepona near Gibraltar and they found us by virtue of our pet friendly accommodation. They were travelling with their labradoodle named Monti and so were pleased to find that we welcomed pets and were conveniently placed along their route. They were driving down south last year, but this time they were not in fact going to their villa at all. They now have some tenants renting it for several months, but they wanted to come back to us and see more of our part of the northern Cost Blanca. They flew to Valencia and spent their first night there, taking the opportunity the next morning to use the tourist bus to acquaint themselves with the city. In the afternoon they caught the train to Gandia, where we collected them from…

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Costa Blanca Pet Friendly Accommodation

As part of our policy of promoting ourselves as Pet Friendly Accommodation, we frequently find that guests want to stay here with their pets, as it can often be quite hard to find suitable places to stay. In the last few days, we have had two such groups of guests, but staying with us for very different reasons. The first couple to arrive were Thor and Margarete from Sweden with their thoroughly endearing dog Buster. They had flown from Stockholm with Buster and were on their way to their holiday home near Torrevieja, but had decided to take a few days to get there and spend some time exploring a different part of the Costa Blanca. They stayed with us for two days in one of our Bed and Breakfast rooms and took advantage of our evening meal service both nights – they considered it so much easier than either taking Buster with them or worrying if he was all right whilst they were out! Buster got along famously with our three dogs and spent a lot of time investigating the garden and playing around with them in general. During the days, Thor and Margarete would take some time to…

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Bed and Breakfast in Spain

Bed and Breakfast in Spain We were happy to welcome Curt and Sandra who came to stay with us for two nights last weekend. They live in Wiltshire – although Curt is Swedish by birth – and the purpose of their trip was to visit relatives who live in this area, as well as other family members further south near Torrevieja. Their plan was to stay with us for a couple of nights and then to move on to visit their other relatives. Curt and Sandra arrived around 3.00pm on Saturday and had a welcome cup of tea in the garden before setting off to their uncle’s house about 15 minutes away. They had also said that they wanted to take advantage of our evening meal service on their first night with us; they had been on the move since 3.30am the previous day and were glad to know that, after their afternoon visit to the family, they would be able to return to us and relax, without having to think about finding a restaurant in unfamiliar surroundings. It is for this reason that they prefer to use Bed and Breakfast accommodation whenever they can on their travels, rather than…

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Rural Bed and Breakfast

Rural Bed and Breakfast We were really pleased to welcome visitors from far away this week – Mike and Sharon Farrell and their family from the United States. They were travelling as a group of six, spanning three generations, and the main purpose of their trip was to visit another family member who was studying in Spain for a semester. The had arrived in Barcelona a few days before travelling to us, and now wanted a couple of days relaxation in a rural Bed and Breakfast before visiting their relative in Alicante. Having spent time sightseeing in Barcelona, and then more sightseeing on the way down, they finally arrived after dining en route, and were happy to settle in and relax for the rest of the evening. However, they did not want to miss the opportunity to see something of our part of Spain, so took time to plan what they would do the next day. Having heard about the famous Borgia family of the area that gave the world the only two popes of Spanish origin, they wanted to see the nearby town of Xativa, where the family came from, so made a plan to take a rural drive…

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