Upper Floor: Guest Bedrooms, Lounge, Office & Bathroom

The top floor of our quinta villa is basically the roof space, but unlike many other Europen homes, Portuguese roof spaces are generally specifically designed with having an accommodation floor made part of it; ours is no exception / conversion. Our roof has a solid reinforced concrete base with aluminium and heavy duty / long life insulation, then special glazed roof tiles on top. Despite the cold in winter and often stiffling heat in summer, the upstairs floor is not at all uncomfortable especially as the balcony doors and windows all have insect screens so can be left open; we have a portable air conditioning unit we wheel out if a guest prefers it.

The lounge area ("sala") we generally use as a children's play area / TV games room; it benefits from an open fireplace (we never use it) and Velux skylight window with blind. The two bedrooms ("quatro's") each have very small granite balconies and the best views in the house. They are rich in and well furnished with pine, and big enough to easily put a cot in each if required. I keep a large reflector telescope in one as the night skies are often very clear here, and it just squeezes far enough out onto the balcony to watch the Moon, stars or Mars. The entire floor upstairs has the original glazed terracotta tiles from when the house was first built.

The office ("escritório") could be used as a 6th bedroom; I have two solid office style pine desks, large printer / fax table and a substantial display case / filing cabinet in it and can comfortably fit two large office chairs in what is left. The shower bathroom is ample enough for guests with w.c., bidet and wash basin. My office window looks out over the river and mountains, plus over the family garden with views to the front gate, so it is very well located. Although there is not a door entry video consol up here, I can easily hear the one downstairs. I have DECT cordless phones around the house, so calls can be answered / made anywhere.

I run both a wirless and cable network from my office; the router can be configured to use the adsl broadband phone link or the mobile broadband connection I have on my laptop, so I am able to access the Internet at any time, even during a thunderstorm or if we lose the phone line for a while. Being on the border / river, I can chose between Portuguese and Spanish mobile networks (I have both Spanish and Portuguese mobile phones to avoid expensive international roaming charges). Two floors down from my office window is a small trap door into the lower ground floor ultility room where I keep a Honda generator just in case we ever lose electricity; it is large enough to run my PC, one TV, the refigerators / freezers downstairs.