Casa de los Coroneles

Count the windows on the north front: eight on the ground floor, eight above, and every upper one with its own wooden balcony. In the 18th century many people on the island lived in houses without a single window, so sixteen of them on one facade announced exactly who was in charge. The twin battlements at either end make the same point. They had no military use and were added as a show of political weight.

Inside, the rooms open onto a central courtyard and stay cool on a hot day. The restored woodwork is the best thing in the house. The rooms themselves stand empty of furniture and serve as gallery space for changing art exhibitions. Outside, the ruins of the old outbuildings sit among rocks where ground squirrels dart about.

• The rooms hold no period furniture. Come for the architecture, the woodwork and whatever art exhibition is on.
• Some of the information inside is in Spanish only.
• Restoration work has closed the interior before while the grounds stayed open, so check the house is open before building a day around it.
• There are toilets inside the house.
• The ground squirrels by the outbuildings are an introduced species. Watch them, but keep your food to yourself.

The house stands on the edge of La Oliva, and most visitors arrive by car. There is a free public car park about 560 m away in a straight line and another car park about 410 m away, and the rest is a walk across to the house. By bus, the nearest stops are Iglesia and La Oliva, both about 625 m away, with a map board beside them. Public toilets are also marked about 540 m from the house.

Best: the hot middle of the day, when the rooms around the courtyard stay cool. Avoid: counting on sunlit photographs of the main facade in winter. The sixteen-window front faces north, so it stays in shade through the cooler months, and only in summer does the low evening sun from the north-west reach across it.