Casa la Perla, a tiny Granada village's first hotel

Robby and Sonja hold hands on the top-floor terrace and look out over the horizon, which stretches before them like a huge framed painting. The gleams of the reservoir. The valleys wedged between the mountains. The sea of orange trees and the roofs of the village. The sun beaming through the sky like a perfectly placed brushstroke. "This is for love, isn't it," smiles Sonja, who, eight months ago, didn't speak a word of Spanish. "Yes," she says, answering her own question. This is for love.

The village of Béznar, in Lecrín, Granada province, has just over 300 residents. Although Béznar is the gateway to the Alpujarra and is an ideal halfway point between Granada and the sea, it has never had a hotel - until now. "It's the first," say Sonja Hensen and Robby Verjans, the 49 and 52-year-old couple who left Belgium in October 2023 to build their dream: Casa la Perla.

The hotel, which is currently under construction, is located on Calle Juan de Austria, near the houses on Calle Real, the road which crosses through the entire village. The 1,200-square-metre building will have five floors with seven rooms, and a private flat where the owners will live. On the first floor will be two large rooms, one of which will be accessible for guests with reduced mobility, as well as a dining room and reception. On the ground floor there will be a small garden on one side and, on the other, the bar, equipped with darts and a pool table. There will also be a swimming pool, where guests will be able to swim with incredible views overlooking the reservoir. A car park for guests will be located in the basement.

The rest of the bedrooms will be upstairs, all with en-suite bathrooms and spectacular views. "We're going to put solar panels on the roof," says Robby, "and the walls are 36.5 centimetres thick", perfect for keeping the rooms at just the right temperature throughout the year. "We want a green house," adds Sonja. "A building that respects, that doesn't clash with, its surroundings." Casa la Perla is set to open in the summer of 2025, although not all rooms will be available by then. "We will go little by little. First one area, then another. The estimated budget for all the work is 1.3 million euros. Although this August we hope to have a bedroom ready... we are tired of the caravan."

Zita, the couple's dog, barks in the distance. "She's the construction site supervisor," laughs Robby. They also have a cat, Tiger. Robby and Sonja have set up their caravan on the land where their hotel is being built. "We arrived in October and in winter, it was fine. But in the heat... phew, let's see if we can finish the room." The villagers have embraced the project and welcomed the couple, sharing with them produce from the village. "Every day they bring gifts. One day they'll leave oranges. Another day, tomatoes. And so on and so forth, from day one. They're very kind," says Robby, as he pulls out his mobile phone to show us some photographs of the process of the construction work. "We're documenting how this is all coming along on Instagram , if you want to see," says Sonja. Among the photos and videos, there is a picture of the couple with their respective children. It was taken just there, months ago, when they decided to change their lives completely.

So how does a Belgian couple come to live in Béznar? Sonja was an administrator and Robby was a builder. Sonja's son, 19, is in the military. Robby's daughter, 18, is studying biomedicine. Both live in Belgium. "We fell in love after our divorces," says Sonja. "We were tired of it, we wanted to change our lives... that's when Robby said to me, why don't we go to Spain?" Sonja lived in Murcia in 1997 and, since then, she has always spoken of the country "with admiration". "We were travelling in the caravan and we passed through Béznar. It was by chance. We saw the place and said "this is it". Yes, this was it. And this is it. This is our new life."

Sonja and Robby had intended to build a family home, but when the architect saw the land, he told them that if they wanted to, they could "squeeze in a lot more". "Why not make it a bit bigger and try it out? And so we tried," they say

Béznar's first hotel will soon open "for anyone who wants to come". "It is 30 minutes from the beach, 30 minutes from Granada city, an hour from the Sierra Nevada, next to the Alpujarra... And it has the reservoir 300 metres away, which is beautiful and where there are many activities." The couple also want to give back to the village which has received them with such kindness, and have many plans for this. "For example, we are going to set up a churrería for guests and for the locals."

On the roof of the hotel, two flags flutter in the wind: one Spanish and one Belgian. Manuel and Nicolás pass by the front door and greet the couple cheerfully. "In Belgium nobody says good morning. That's all it takes to make a difference," says Sonja. The pair walk along the top floor, imagining what the day the doors finally open will look like.

And why the name 'Casa la Perla'? "Why, because it's a pearl," says Robby, pointing to the beautiful landscape. Then, smiling, he grabs Sonja's hand, and together they look out over the horizon. "This is for love, isn't it?"