Chiel and his sister Ilse had been looking for a place to live in a so -called community, a small community, for ten years. In the Netherlands they did not find this place of their dreams, but in Spain. There they have now bought a real village with a few others: the hamlet of El Mortorio in the north of Spain.
“My mother came across this village on the internet at one point,” Chiel said on Monday morning in the radio program Keeigoeiemorgen. “It took over a year to go through everything and in the end we decided to buy this village.”
“We searched quite spacious,” Ilse added. “It was not our first idea to go abroad. But in the end we also went to look in Spain, France and Germany and then this came our way.”
They saw El Mortorio for sale on the Spanish Funda, Idealista. Chiel: “Sometimes something so unique is offered. We came in contact with the owner and in February 2023 we went there once. Then we met and we went there for a few days.” What they saw appealed to them immediately. However, it took a while before they actually made it to buy. “It had some feet in the earth to get the whole family to take this step.”
What appealed to them in El Mortorio? “The space and the location. It’s fantastic green there,” says Ilse. “It is in northern Spain, the climate is nice there. Not like in southern Spain, where it is very hot. Furthermore, this village is fantastic between the mountains and the valley. It consisted, when we bought it, from nine houses and a ruin. But we saw a lot of possibilities. We have already started renovating.
The renovated houses will be rented out. “The previous owner did that too and we continue that. We also want to expand the village in the long term.”
“A lot will happen in the next five years,” Chiel added. “We will also live there ourselves, at a certain point. It is intended that the community will expand to at least fifteen families.”
El Mortorio is then lying in the middle of nowhereA number of large cities are located 45 minutes away. “So we are remote, but it is not that you have completely disappeared from the earth,” Ilse said. “It is easily accessible.”
