Properties for sale and rent in Spain

You arrive to see the house at midday. The road climbs from the marina, turns into the forest, and the noise of the coast falls away behind you. Two hundred metres later, silence. It smells of pine and warm needles.

First thought on the plot: no neighbours in sight. None at all. Fourteen hundred metres of land, a slope, pines, and a house built into that slope in three steps rather than set on top of it.

You go up to the top level. Three bedrooms, each with its own terrace. You open one of the doors and realise this is where you'll look at the sea every morning, and that your coffee will happen here, not in the kitchen.

Middle floor. Kitchen, dining room, living room, fireplace. You work out how the first dinner will go, who sits where, how many people fit once the terrace doors are open. The answer is: plenty.

Below, two more rooms. Someone will stay down there, apart from everyone else, and both sides will be glad of it.

You walk out to the pool. Water, pines, nobody. The thought that arrives at this point is usually the same one: you could live here without ever closing the curtains.

Then you walk down to the beach — ten minutes. You come back and count the rest. Marina five hundred metres. Shop nearby. Altea five minutes. Airport an hour, which means friends from across Europe come for the weekend without needing to be persuaded.

And the last thought, already in the car: there won't be another plot like this in Mascarat. It was built one house at a time, and the land ran out.