Hello,

My wife and I are traveling to Spain with our five year old son in April/May and would like to rent an apartment for a two month period in the Castile-Leon region. 

One requirement is that we have a VPN connection available in the apartment so that I can connect to the office that I work for back in the states.  The only other thing that we would really like is a kitchen with a stove to prepare our own food.  Are short term accommodations like this possible?  What would our best options be? 

Thanks for any help!

Brian
Louisville, Kentucky
USA

Castilla y Leon is a huge area.  Maybe not by Kentucky standards, but by European….  Anyway I’m sure you can find what you’re looking for but you’ll have to be more precise.  Avila, Leon, Vallodolid, Burgos etc. are all big enough to have aparthotels and other accommodation, and Salamanca, as a big university town, is geared up for short-term self-catering lets.  Try googling for holiday lets - our place is in the wrong part of Spain for you, but it’s the right kind of house, if you see what I mean.

Thanks so much for the reply - it gives us hope that we will be able to find a place!  Yes, Castilla y Leon is big even by Kentucky standards =)  We visited in 2007 for two weeks and traveled quite a bit of the region by car.  We had thought that we would have an apartment for the upcoming trip through my wife’s university, but it fell through at the last minute.  I looked at photos on your website and indeed, your house is beautiful!  If we were going to be near Barcelona I would jump at the chance to stay there. 

One follow up question - since we require the VPN connection wherever we wind up, would you recommend trying to make arrangements before leaving the states or should we take care of them after arriving in Spain?  My wife is going to go first for two weeks by herself, so she could stay in hostels until she finds a a longer term apartment by the time my son and I arrive.

Thanks again,

Brian

Someone else looking at this may know better, but I think you’ll have more success sorting out your networking when you’re in Spain than trying to do it in advance, unless you have a friend or colleague who can look into it for you.  I’m not sure exactly what you mean by VPN, but it will be difficult to get broadband for two months unless it’s already connected to the property you choose to live in.  Could you get by with wi-fi?  Some cities - Zamora is one if I remember correctly - have wi-fi covering most of the urban area.  My village (sorry, it’s not near Barcelona, it’s near Granada! - neither is any good for you anyway) has wi-fi from the town hall and you can use a laptop sitting on my roof terrace.  Not bad for a place where the mule is still regular transport….

Yes, it sounds like you’re right that it will be better to find the right networking connections after we are there.  VPN is just a virtual private network connection back to my employer’s office in Louisville that allows me to connect to their network.  It’s hit and miss here in the states whether I can connect to it through a WiFi hotspot.  As long as I could plug a router into a broadband connection at a property, I think I would be ok. 

Sorry - I’m not sure why I thought your property was near Barcelona - too much reading around forums/apartment sites I guess!  Anyway - thanks again for the responses, you have been most helpful.

Brian