Molino La Flor

It was okay.

Just lovely.

Kids can feed the donkeys, chickens, and sheep, and there’s also a river for a refreshing dip. There are two pools, one for children and a deeper one for adults, plus barbecue grills, a microwave, and an oven. The food served there is precooked, so you can head to Cortes de la Frontera to buy what you need. Bring a cooler for it. The bathrooms are rustic, to put it mildly, but they do the job. In summer the cucumber or watermelon pool gets incredibly hot, so you can’t really stay inside it. They provide a fan, but it doesn’t do much to cool the space. It’s basically a concrete water tank, and sitting in the sun turns it into an oven.

The setting is incredibly beautiful, with the house surrounded by nature and perched above a river. We’d read good reviews and hoped to enjoy the place, but the condition of the house and grounds fell short on cleanliness, maintenance, privacy, and communication. We hope our experience was a one-off, because the place has so much potential, and we hope these comments help improve the upkeep of such a special spot. Check-in was at 6:00 PM, and we weren’t allowed to arrive early, so we lost much of the day. We understood cleaning takes time, but at 5:55 PM the cleaners were still inside eating cake, and the house was very dirty. There were broken plastic cups on the lawn, used cotton balls around the pool, tweezers, a glass bottle on the ground, red feathers outside, and dirty wipes under the wooden shed. Before leaving at 6:10 PM, the cleaners sat down to eat some cake they’d found in the fridge. The sofas, beds, and floor were dusty and looked unclean. The pool hadn’t been cleaned before our arrival and had lots of leaves and insects in it. There was no net, so we used a kitchen strainer to clear it while the cleaners ate at the table. The grass around the pool was overgrown and hadn’t been properly mowed. There was also a wasp nest inside the house, practically in one of the beds. We weren’t given directions, the gas stove didn’t work, and no one answered the phone after 11 PM. They hadn’t answered when we called during opening hours either. The house filled with flies, and no one had warned us to keep the doors closed. These things can happen, but guests need directions and good communication. We’ve stayed elsewhere without the house getting nearly as full of flies. There was nothing separating the property from the surrounding area, so we didn’t feel much privacy or security. One morning, a couple who said they were lost came through while we were relaxing by the pool and asked to cross the property to get out. A man with two children also slipped in through the gate. The owner came by unannounced twice: first on the second day to collect payment and check in, then to show a DJ around the facilities. He asked permission the second time, but we were already inside. At 11 a.m., checkout time, the cleaners and a maintenance person were already at the house. They started working before we’d finished tidying up and without waiting to check us out.