In my next life, I think I may just want to be the Duchess of Alba. Unashamedly bold and audacious, at 85 she has just married her third husband, Alfonso Diez - 25 years her junior. She is exempt from kneeling before the Pope, and with 47 titles - including the Grandes de España - she has ridden on horseback into the Seville Cathedral. My fantasy kindred spirit? Yes, her life sounds quite ideal, especially zig-zagging between the six spectacular palaces owned throughout Spain, littered with Rembrandts and Brueghels (to name but a few)...
All photographs by Simon Watson
