In the early 1920s, a young idealistic English aristocrat named Gerald Brenan rents a house in a remote Spanish village in order to pursue his dream of becoming a writer. But soon he meets Juliana, an attractive and sensual local girl who fascinates and distracts him. Caught between strange local customs and a web of romantic entanglements, Gerald soon learns the pleasures of physical love that his Victorian education never let him imagine!