A house in Andalusia, patio included

A traditional Andalusian house turns inward. The street facade is closed, lime-washed, with few openings; all the light comes from a central patio, planted and often with water in it. This is no affectation: cool night air collects there, plants and water lower the temperature by evaporation, and the courtyard draws air through the house by day. The device comes from Roman and then Andalusi houses, and it still works.

Three things to check. The patio's orientation and proportions: the narrower and taller it is, the longer it holds shade. The presence of water — a fountain, a basin, however modest — which genuinely changes the air you breathe there. And the protection of the openings: an Andalusian house is lived with shutters closed in the hot hours, and a large modern window with no shading undoes everything else.

Three regions, three holidays. The white villages of the sierra — Grazalema, Zahara, Vejer — sit high, are cooler at night, and look out over open country. The cities — Seville, Granada, Córdoba — concentrate the legacy of eight centuries of Muslim rule, and their monuments must be booked well ahead. The coast divides between a heavily built Costa del Sol and an Atlantic side around Cádiz, windier and far less dense.

Summer is not negotiable. In the Guadalquivir valley, July and August regularly pass forty degrees, and life is arranged accordingly: out early, home in the middle of the day, out again at dusk. It works, it is even the local rhythm, but it is decided before booking. April, May, September and October give the same light without the constraint, and the sierra villages stay liveable in high summer thanks to their altitude.

What shows through everywhere. The Andalusi legacy is not confined to three monuments: the horseshoe arch, the enclosed irrigated garden, the azulejo, the plan of old towns with their narrow lanes, and part of the vocabulary. You read it in the houses you rent as much as in the palaces, and it is what makes a plain village patio worth having.

Distances, which get underestimated. Andalusia is about twice the size of Belgium, and journeys add up quickly: Seville to Granada takes two and a half hours, Granada to Cádiz close to four, and crossing the Sierra Nevada longer still. High-speed trains link Seville, Córdoba and Málaga in under an hour each, which changes how you see the cities; everywhere else a car is needed. Better, then, to choose one base and range out from it than to plan three stops in a week.

Our Andalusian addresses are rented direct from their owners, who know what hour their patio falls into shade and which month is better avoided.