Besides, my goal from the start had not been to book an estate where I would spend my days lounging on a terrace—that's not what you go for in the low season—but, rather, an affordable base camp for exploring the area. And in that role Casa Magdalena excelled. In one week we were able to ski in the Sierra Nevada, stroll the empty beaches and marinas of the Costa Tropical, climb the Alhambra's lookout towers, hit Granada's hidden-gem tapas bars, take a dip in the city's candlelit Arab baths, have a flamenco lesson inside a cave, and explore the gleaming-white, cliff-hanging villages of the Alpujarra Mountains, famous for artists who make ceramics and textiles. Moreover, we did things we could not have done had we stayed at a hotel in Granada: The boys got to pick their own oranges for orange juice, collect marine fossils in the hills, befriend the fish-truck man, and sit in on a kindergarten class. Much of this was thanks to a local contact of Maxine's, Scarlett Farrow, a British expatriate who knows everybody in the valley and acts as a concierge of sorts. Her catering business, Casa Amelia, provides villa renters with delicious prepared meals—no small service, given the dearth of good restaurants—and, in the absence of a Lecrin Valley tourist office or anyone who speaks English (aside from the British expats who are snapping up cheap property), Scarlett also arranges itineraries and activities for visitors. The insider advice and indispensable maps she provided were alone worth her fee of $20 an hour. And, even though she, too, is a foreigner, she brought us closer to the Spanish than we could ever have gotten on our own. Lesson four: A great villa rental agent has a network of local hosts who can introduce you to the community surrounding your villa and act as your fixer. Don't leave home without one.

In the end, Casa Magdalena gave us an atmospheric and spacious home base for sightseeing, but it was also a lot of work. As much as I may get a kick out of hand-pressing oranges, there is only so much cooking and cleaning—and air-drying laundry in the rain—that I want to do on vacation. Most of us would prefer not to lift a finger, of course, but the solution—a villa with full-time, live-in staff—can cost the moon in Europe. Lesson five: Get part-time help at a reasonable price. Almost all rental villas are cleaned at least once a week by a housekeeper who can be hired for extra cleaning on an hourly basis. Our house manager, an extremely conscientious Dutch woman named Angelique Giesen who lived five minutes away, proved invaluable when it came to the help we needed. Not only was she always on hand—when we could get a strong enough cell-phone signal to reach her—to show us how to work the appliances, but she also did our cleaning, laundry, and, since the boys adored her from the start, our babysitting, at a reasonable rate of $18.50 per hour.

The moral of my story: It is absolutely still possible to beat the high cost of the euro. In fact, some villa rental agents have lowered their rates as a consequence of the economic woes that hit both England and the United States this spring. Casa Magdalena, for instance, is now priced at only $2,100 for June rentals (and $2,500 in July and August). But the size of the deal you can nab depends on what type of villa vacation you want. If your goal is to have the grounds, views, and full-time staff you'd get at a country resort—to luxuriate poolside and never cook a meal—you will face sticker shock. But if your goal is just a comfortable base camp from which to sightsee, a rental house can still be far more affordable than a hotel.