Cortijo Las Monjas at the 5th European Congress on Rural Tourism, october 2014, Alpbach, Tyrol

 
Here it is a video with the presentation i made for the 5th European Congress on Rural Tourism. This event takes place every two years and is organised by the EuroGites-European Federation of Rural Tourism. In October 2014, together with its national partner Austrian Farm Holidays in Alpbach, Tyrol. www.europeanrtcongress.org

They asked me for a presentation where i could give to the colleagues from other countries in rural tourism an impression how rural tourism works in the very South of Europe from my experience as an owner/manager of a rural accomodation.

I thought that could be nice to share this presentation and explain you a bit, with this video, about our story. My name is Almudena and toguether with my family we run Cortijo Las Monjas.

Sometimes, originally a rural accommodation is not build for tourism, and this is our case, Cortijo Las Monjas was restored in 2002 as a family tourism business to complement the olive farming of 14 has.

In fact more than 300 years ago the farmhouse belonged to the nuns, this is why this house is called Cortijo de Las Monjas (Cortijo is the word in Andalusia for deisgn a Farmhouse and Monjas is Spanish for Nuns) the Nuns were not living here, we found a rental agreement from the year 1709, where appear that the nuns just own the land and the house and the farmers could live there in exchange for work on the landand they could pay them with food and some money.

Around 100 years ago my family arrived to this place first like workers and later like owners.
My mother and her brother and sister were born here and they were living here till the 60, when they get married and then all of them went to look for a better life at the city. The Cortijo was abandoned and started to be more a ruin that a house

Around the 80´s, for differents reasons my parents took care of the Cortijo and the land, they worked so hard to get the house inhabited again. They drove every weekend 3 hours one wayand 3 hours way back to work at the house, in the field, picking olives and other fruits.

My brother Nacho and me, were already there too, we spent every holiday at the Cortijo, our best memories from our chilhood are here, and not everything was work... (almost :-D )

The Cortijo was like the holiday house for the family and other friends from the city who wanted to spend a weekend at the countryside, this was maybe like the start of the rural tourism in Andalusia, but nobody called it like that, was more like “nos vamos al campo” this means “let’s go to the countryside”, my father sometimes says, life changed into the other way around, when he was a child his parents took him to see how looks the City, now parents take the children to the countryside because they even don’t know how a sheep looks like.

In 2000, the house was needed of a big reform, and we decided to renovate the place and to change it into a rural accommodation, like a complement for the olive production. My father was the promotor, he was thinking on it for a long time, and with his experience like a constructor he made the plans and the whole family helped to create it.

When people arrive, they always take some time to enjoy the view and many people find there is a magical atmosphere in and around the Cortijo. Both the authenticity and the beautiful surroundings makes Cortijo las Monjas a very special place to stay.

Also what made the rural tourism diferent, is us, we are living there and the treatment we can give to our guests is much more familiar than in a hotel, the are not a number room, the are call by their name.
The can experience how life is at our place, they can taste the diferents local products, the food for our garden and if they want the can join us in the diferents activities.

I am an active member of differents associations, working for the development of the region from the conservation of natural and cultural heritage. We colaborate with this organizations and we also organice here and in the area differents events, always trying to keep the traditions.

Over the past years, we have develop and diversify our offer, weedings, small MICE events, open-air celebrations are also possible. We organized different kind of courses and workshops, about olive oil, wine, aromatics and medicinal plants...etc.

In Andalusia the climate is very suitable for offering other outdoor activities almost the whole year round. A lot of people don’t realise the best time to visit the area is off season and even in winter it can be very comfortable wheater. Hiking, ciclyng, horse riding, cayoing, speleology are other activities you can practice here.

Next to all the romance, it is real hard work to keep everything running, but we just love what we do and where we live, this is why we will go on, giving the chance to the people to discover our region and our little paradise, and having the reward to make people happy for being here.

Hope you liked our story and i hope to see you soon!
Almudena