Casa Aloe, independent villa 30 kms north of Barcelona, 12 km inland from coast at Alella.

Since adding Casa Aloe to our listings in 2002, it has broken all records for occupancy. Why? First of all, it is a very comfortable and well-kept house with lots of nice details (friendly owners, the pool is maintained year-round, the nice outdoor BBQ dining area, the huge American-style kitchen, large sunny terraces, etc..). Past guests have also pointed out how it feels like a real house. Nice furniture, nice decorations. It is a real house, until recently lived-in by a well-educated and well-traveled local family. But everyone who writes in seems to be particularly happy with the location. Vallromanes is an easy drive or commuter train ride in to Barcelona, and the area around the house is attractive and user-friendly, the village with plenty of shopping, restaurants & cafés.

Click here for emails sent in from past guests at Casa Aloe

independent villa, 4 bedrooms, 3 baths (300m2)
sleeps up to 9 maximum - the owners are strict about this
no pets allowed & smoking only outdoors
central heating, washer-dryer, dishwasher, etc...
altitude: 60mtrs, 12kms to sea, 1 km to town, 25 kms to Barcelona
satellite TV, video, radio/cassette/CD
large private pool (11 x 5 mtrs - maintained year-round!)
outdoor BBQ and sitting area in garden
garage for 2 cars
current rates: 1850 Euros/week in high-season, 1700 Euros/week in mid-season, 1550 Euros/week rest of year

the pool Location: The town of Vallromanes is known locally for its private golf course (green-fees accepted). Casa Aloe overlooks the golf course. Vallromanes is just inland from Alella, a historic and scenic wine-producing village with its own "denomination" and many fine buildings (I´ll include a photo of one of them at the bottom of this page). Allella is right on the coast, just up from El Masnou, about 25 kms north of Barcelona. Alella and Masnou would be listed on any decent map of the area. Masnou has commuter trains in to the center of Barcelona every half hour, a fun train ride which runs along the coast, with views of the beaches for much of the 25 minutes the trip lasts. You can also drive into Barcelona in about 25 minutes from either the coastal highway, the C-32 from Masnou, or from the AP-7 inland near Granollers. Masnou is also important for the quality of its beaches, the good terraced restaurants on its pleasure port, the old world charm of the town center, as well as good supermarkets in the shopping centers just outside of town.

the living room I usually go into great detail about the properties I offer but I am beginning to wonder if that is counterproductive. Without much of a write-up, Casa Aloe is doing just fine without me! So I guess, for now, I´ll just include this brief outline of the room distribution, and mention that this house is recommended for wheelchair or elderly guests in that there is an en suite bedroom on the ground floor, with easy access to kitchen and living/dining rooms and the large terrace.

Very briefly, the distribution is as follows:

living room - other angle - On ground floor, at the end of the central hallway is the large 1) master bedroom, with 190x150cm double bed, full en suite private bathroom, closet, dresser, etc - a very nice bedroom indeed, and there is a door leading out to the terrace. Just to the left of the main entrance is a smallish second 2) bedroom with two single beds, probably best for kids. Across the entry hall is the door to the large American-style modern eat-in kitchen. Beyond the kitchen is the large terrace wrapping all around the first floor (remember, there is a door in the masterbedroom out to this terrace) and the terrace has lots of flowerpots - mostly geraniums - a perfect spot for sunny breakfasts outdoors, right next to the kitchen. The wooden-paneled livingroom is like something you will never see in a normal rental property, with large flat-screened TV, fireplace, bookshelfs full of books, small stereo system, a dining room table seating 10+, and plenty of sofas and lazy chairs around a low coffee table- just like a real house! Let's face it, in this business, so many of the modern houses look like they have been decorated on the cheap at IKEA !

the kitchen angle one - On the first floor, there is a 3) bedroom with a double bed and another 4) bedroom with two single beds, and there is a large central sitting room with another single bed for if needed. There is also a baby crib which can be put in any of the rooms. There is a shared full bath in the hall, and a from the central living room, you have a couple of steps up to the first floor terrace with good views of the golf course and surrounding hills. You can see the photo of this central livingroom here below, the room with the slanting roof and the very fancy audio speakers on the far wall...

- Downstairs, there is a long hallway to the exercise room and sauna (which is now broken and too old to fix as parts are no longer available from Scandanavia). Downstairs here there is another full bathroom which is very convenient for those at the pool or at the barbecue seating area outside on this main garden level of the property. See the photos of the elegant bbq area below and its relation to the garden area in the second photo from the top on this page.. You can reach the nice barbecue area either from the inside of the house or from an outdoor staircase coming down from the terrace in front of the kitchen on the ground floor.

the terrace outside living room and kitchen I always like houses to have plenty of different sitting areas. At Casa Aloe, we were 9 guests, and we had meals in the kitchen, in the dining room, out on the terrace, and below next to the barbecue while the kids ran and the garden and swam. I should probably redo this page now with larger versions of these same photos. I did this page years ago when every had slow internet connections so you had to use small low dpi- photos. Nowadays the connections are faster and it you could really see this house, I don't many of you would want to stay elsewhere. This house has a very high return rate and gets great feedback from long and short-term rentals alike. Be sure to read the Comments Page for this house.