One shell of a place to stay

"So, I'm looking for a giant snail?" Andy sounded a little testy. I couldn't blame him. It was Friday evening and I'd whisked him off to the Costa de Sol for the weekend. Turned out the weather was more suited to trash TV and a chillied-up Vietnamese takeaway on the Costa del Sofa.

Our unexpected meeter-and-greeter at Malaga airport had been a freakish storm, which buffeted us for an hour-and-a-half east along the coast. At Nerja we headed up into the hills, driving over not lemons but a knobbly carpet of windblown avocados, past rain-lashed villas and scraggy hounds sheltering under looming cacti. Now, we were scanning the horizon for molluscs.

Or, more precisely, Los Caracoles: an intriguing-sounding hotel built to resemble a group of snails trailing through national parkland high above the Mediterranean coast. Friends who had stayed at a nearby villa in the summer had been bowled over by the design and insisted we visit.

At first glimpse, it seemed our headlights had lit up gleaming white cave dwellings bulging out from near-vertical earth. Rather than an ape-like troglodyte, it was Barcelona-born owner and creator Julio Martin Pozo who bounded out to guide us by torchlight down the steep steps and winding paths to our room.

The hotel stood on three levels: big daddy snail, the restaurant and bar, on the highest plateau; down to a row of youngsters, six double rooms, flanked by a small swimming pool; then, on a third ledge, a scattering of larger specimens, five bungalows with living rooms. All were moulded into white, curvaceous concrete shells.

Inside our double room, everything was cosy but unconventional - white walls were warmed up with lamps made from gourds; the bathroom appeared to be clad in crazy paving. Our friends had been misty-eyed about sipping Rioja on the hotel's idyllic restaurant terrace. Our day ended gulping down Jerez brandy from the minibar while a howling gale completed endless circuits of the grounds.

The Costa del Sol continued to play against the odds next morning. A sluggish recce on to the covered private patio revealed only faint sunshine; the consolation prize, however, was a view that alone was worth flying for.

A gaping green valley that fell 6km to the sea was draped into a series of improbable lumps and bumps like a child's drawing, with boxy white villas, dark blobs for olive groves and wide blue bands of sea and sky. The untypical weather only accentuated the jaw-dropping oddity of Los Caracoles, built in an area where ideas for new developments are normally as flexible as an octogenarian attempting Ashtanga yoga. So, what was the inspiration? Gaudì, of course. "I grew up seeing his work in the streets of Barcelona, and was lucky enough to work with architects who knew him," explained Julio over breakfast.

But why snails? "It was just an idea that came one day," he said, with a flourish of the hand. Julio had been a painter with cash for a plot of land and a "dream" of creating the perfect hotel. Architects adapted his sketches.

If the hotel was built by Julio for Julio, he made an amiable job of sharing it - setting down orange juice and quince preserve with hot rolls, stoking up the wood-burning stove.

Dinner is less what you'd expect. On Saturday, a Swedish chef greeted groups of chic weekenders from Granada and Seville, who'd squealed over the panoramica like children before composing their expressions to enter the salon. They feasted on Andalucian hake with Scandinavian cabbage sallad - very unCosta.

Sure, Nerja still has its piles of British tabloids and racks of nylon flamenco dresses, but under Julio's influence, the place seemed less touristy, more atmospheric.

Jane Hayward flew to Malaga with GB Airways (0845 7733377), returns from £149. Magic of Spain (08705 462442) has three nights in a double at Los Caracoles for £348pp, incl flights and car hire.