Andalusia – 4. Marbella

We walked to Marbella along the beach one morning. It’s about 6 miles from Elviria, and I was feeling the heat near the end. Still Spring, but climbing into the mid twenties by mid-day. Approaching the city outskirts there are a number of rugby pitches, and we are in the city proper when we reach Playa de Venus adjacent to the port. Puerto Deportiva with its modern green lighthouse lies beyond. On more sedentary days, there are regular busses along the coastal highway, the A7, for a more leisurely trip into town. It takes under half an hour. 

Marbella has long been a resort for the quality. Meaning well to do, and sometimes more quantity (of cash) than quality. The resort was an early example of Costa Del Sol tourism, established just after the Second world war. The city population today numbers 140,000 people, though that can treble during the holiday season. North western Europeans, including a lot of British and Irish, swarm for the guaranteed heat and sunshine. A long, long time ago it was popular with southern visitors of a different sort. The Moors colonised Iberia from the eight century, the name Al Andalus was then applied to the whole Iberian peninsula. Andalusia persists in the name of the Moors last redoubt.The Moors established a citadel here in Marbella, the Alcazaba, fragments of which survive, and a Mosque. 

There are two parts to Marbella. The bustling well serviced seafront where we arrived after our walk is the modern resort. The Old Town, a little farther inland, is a warren of lanes and quaint squares sloping ever upwards. After the conquest of the Catholic Monarchs in the late fifteenth century there was significant development in this walled, medieval town. The Plaza de los Naranjes was built as the centrepiece of the Old Town. It remains a picturesque antique square with some fine public buildings. The town hall was built in 1568 and the Mayor’s House nearby. At the south west corner is the Chapel of Santiago from the fifteenth century; the oldest building in the city. It predates the square, which explains why it is set at an odd angle to it.

The square itself is regular, tree shaded and ringed with restaurants and bars. Nearby is another ancient church. The Church of Santa Maria de la Encarnacion is a Baroque building of the seventeenth century, built over the existing mosque. Painted white and with an imposing bell tower it stands out as the old city’s grandest church.

Heading further uphill the streets tunnel back to their medieval origins. The Castillo de Marbella, the remains of the Moorish Castle, lies to the north east of the square. From here, following the line of the walls back down to the modern commercial centre, we come to Plaza de la Iglesia with its statue of Saint Bernabe, the town’s patron saint. His festival is on the 11th June, ushering in a week of dancing and carousing in the Spanish way. Festivities are rarely remote from Marbella at any time though this, we hear, is particularly wild. Our ambitions for earthly delights are not particularly Bacchanalian today and we make do with an easygoing hour or two in Plaza Manuel Cantos, where the Irishman Pub and Luigi’s Italian Restaurant provide sufficient for our drinking and dining pleasure. Other soirees might include El Balcon de la Virgen and Patio Marbella in the labyrinth of the old town. 

Between the Old Town and the modern seafront, Ensanche Historico, the Historic Extension, is laid out to ease transition between the two. Across the busy thoroughfare of Paseo de Alameda, Alameda Park is an elegant formal park, richly planted and decorated in colourful tiles. All of this radiating out from a historic fountain. It’s a glorious place to hang out, the setting luminous under the shade of palm trees.

Beyond the park, The Avenida del Mar, as its name suggests, forms a wide esplanade sloping down to the seafront. It is lined with sculptures by Salvador Dali and others. Eduard Soriano is a notable other, his Monument to the Freedom of Expression overlooks the seafront promenade. This shows two figures at an open window surrounded by apt quotations, including the sculptor’s: Freedom does not die, it is born and sleeps daily.

Dali’s ten bronze sculptures were cast in Verona and acquired in 1998. They feature a range of hallucinogenic imagery as one would expect from such a major Surrealist. Some are drawn from Classical mythology including figures of the god Mercury and of Greek hero Perseus beheading Medusa. There are metamorphoses of nature with Man on a Dolphin and Cosmic Elephant, and inevitably Dali’s wife and  muse, Gala, who is depicted leaning out a window.

Dali has no specific connection with Marbella. He hailed from Catalonia, born in 1904 in Figueras, near the French border. As for Andalusia, he was in his younger years very friendly with Federico Garcia Lorca, one of Spain’s leading poets. Then there is the film, Un Chien Andalou. Lorca, whose advances were rejected by Dali, interpreted the film’s title as a swipe at him and became further alienated from the Surrealist movement.

Lorca may simply have been paranoid, though the title does intrigue. It is taken from the Spanish saying: an Andalusian dog howls – someone has died. The idea sprang from an exchange of dreams with filmmaker Luis Bunuel and the two collaborated on the 1929 silent film which was directed by Bunuel and co-written with Dali. It ran to just sixteen minutes. The notorious opening scene begins with the reassuring caption, once upon a time, but quickly becomes ominous. A man sharpens his razor while a thin cloud bisects the moon, He restrains a seated young woman and brings the razor to her staring eye. Provocative, repulsive and outrageous, the film went down well which was something a disappointment to its writers who were prepared for a riot. It echoes forever through avant garde film. David Lynch would be a good example. Think Blue Velvet for one, and many’s the rock video.

Marbella promenade stretches from the port for a further seven kilometres to Puerto Banus in the west. Puerto Banus marina, with its luxury yachts is an upmarket nightspot and includes, amongst other delights, O’Grady’s Irish Pub. There are plenty of opportunities for refreshment at this end of the boardwalk, and plenty of time, which seems to grow profusely in the sunshine of Andalusia. That day we took a bus back to base camp. We were helped by a lovely Norwegian couple who come here every year. And why not. Folk from frozen fjords and rain dirty valleys need some time to gaze at the actual heavens.

To everything – turn, turn, turn

There is a season – turn, turn, turn

And a time to every purpose under heaven

A time to be born, a time to die

A time to plant, a time to reap,

A time to kill, a time to heal,

A time to laugh, a time to weep.

This version by the Byrds, from 1965, surfaces whenever joy is required. Pete Seeger wrote it in 1959, setting the words from the Book of Ecclesiastes to a major chord sequence. Those words from the Bible are attributed to King Solomon of the 10th century BC. Very old school. Seeger supplied the “turn, turn, turn” and the Byrds took it to No 1 with their characteristic jangling guitars and sublime vocal harmony.

Andalusia – 3. Costa Del Sol

At times we stay in the villa of a friend on the outskirts of Marbella. It is just a short drive from Malaga airport, all going well. The use of satnav is recommended on Spanish roads, otherwise you, like us, will get lost. It looked the height of simplicity to get from airport to front porch, but born as I was to have adventure, it took me over two hours. The A7 highway was my intended route, not to be confused with the AP 7 which runs beside it, the two often intertwining. Confuse is exactly what I did, but first I took the random decision on our first visit to make a quick flythrough of the famous, or infamous, resorts on the southern extremes of Malaga.

The Costa del Sol is well named and stretches from Nerja, just east of Malaga, to La Linea near Gibraltar. A prosperous commercial and industrial area in the 19th century, it declined in the early twentieth and after World War 2 turned to attracting visitors as a way to halt the economic decline. Where the coast was once a string of fishing villages, it is now mostly urbanised and has grown to be Spain’s most frequented tourist location with around seventeen million overnight stay.

Torremolinos golf course marked the beginning of the boom way back in 1928, The development of Malaga as resort town followed. The Spanish Civil War intervened, with World War two kicking off just as it ended, but by the fifties the fame of the region spread for its climate and facilities. Marbella, a village of 900 people, saw the establishment of the El Rodeo resort and Marbella Club hotel, and attracted film stars and the rich and famous. Mass tourism exploded in the sixties and seventies leading to overdevelopment, often submerginfg the culture which was a major part of the attraction in the first place.

Torremolinos, Benalmadena and Fuengerola are packed together. once a poor fishing village, is now a town of seventy thousand people just 8miles from Malaga. It has the largest concentration of golf courses in Spain. Fore! I am sure there are more. The climate makes this one of the most enjoyable places to play, if Golf could be considered a pleasure, or a good walk spoiled.

The resorts were developed without much concern for aesthetic or social planning and became a notorious highrise jungle. While the serious tourist demurred, many more voted with their boarding pass. A cocktail of sun, sea and sex with two weeks determined indolence offered an antidote to the humdrum of work slaves from the temperate zone.

The urban landscape ultimately reflects its own purpose; a modern, commercial open holiday camp. Which is fine if you like that sort of thing. M and I were more of the island hopping hippy type, back in the day; though our once ad hoc holiday season is a bit more planned now. Spain, of course, accommodates much more than the cartoon holidaymaker. We’ve oft visited over the years, mostly Barcelona, also Madrid and Malaga, and the kaleidoscope of culture and moods that is Andalusia.

Driving through the tourist hub from Torremolinos to Fuengerola is a sample of the sun soaked brochures we’ve perused. We gained a startling glimpse of the giant black Bull on its mound, which adorns my travel book of Spain. This is the famous advertisement for Osborne Brandy. The concept was conceived by Manolo Prieto in an advertising campaign in the 1950s for Osborne. The giant metal bull silhouette bore the Osborne brand and appeared at roadsides throughout the country. Some are 40 feet high and there are almost a hundred all over Spain, though not in Catalonia.

Roadside advertising was progressively curtailed over the next few decades and eventually banned altogether, but campaigners fought to keep their bull. In Andalusia, the authorities ruled that they were part of the cultural and artistic heritage of the nation in 1997 and remained, minus the branding, though Osborne still pays for their upkeep. Some controversy remains, especially amongst opponents of bullfighting; hence the exception of Catalonia.

Osborne, you might know, goes hand in hand with Harrison, so it was a sight dear to our eyes to see the bull standing proud. Thomas Osborne, mind, had no direct connection with our kin. They came to Wicklow in the seventeenth century I think, and were stonemasons. Thomas was an Englishman who arrived in Cadiz in 1772 and exported sherry to begin with The brandy came some time later.

We figured that after Fuengirola we would be nearing our destination. Unfortunately, coming off the seafont there was a fork in the road and the sign offered Marbella in either direction. Eenie, meenie, minie, mo. Wrong choice, I’m afraid. We found ourseves headed back towards Malaga, then taking an exit, we wound up on the AP 7, which is a toll road, and ended up in Canada. Canada, in this case is a shopping centre in Haute Marbella. The town centre was downhill from there but by this stage our satnav was even more confused than us and would stop at nothing to get us back to Canada again. Eventually we found the coastal branch of the A7 after a chaotic tour of Marbella centre, including rapidly reversing before an oncoming tram. Our destination, Elviria, was just five miles out of town.

Fuengirola is in fact the last rail stop along this stretch of coast. The commuter line to Malaga has three trains an hour, the journey taking forty five minutes. It stops at the airport which takes thirty minutes. From Malaga, there’s a railway connection to Algeciras (past Gibraltar) via Ronda, and connections also to Seville and on to Cadiz.

The coastal highway, meanwhile, leaves Malaga city environs behind and rounds the corner to follow the coastline to Marbella. La Cala de Mijas is the first stop. This is a small settlement of five thousand people which maintains much of the feeling of the whitewashed Andalusian fishing village. There were four towers defending it from Berber invaders, one of which forms the centrepiece of its attractive seafront. Dating from the sixteenth century it is one of the oldest on the coast and has a museum within. There are sensitive modern developments along the coast, lowrise and white, a tiny, winding old town, a wide commercial plaza just off the highway, a long promenade and a twice weekly market.

A boardwalk extends along the beach heading west stretching almost the 6 kilometres to Cabopino. This is a small resort around a pleasant harbour where we stopped for lunch on a coastal walk. There’s a large private resort hotel, while bars, souvenir stalls and eateries colonise the beach. Farther on the nudist beach is marked by a large stone erection, but we pretended not to notice. Torre Ladrones, the thieves tower, is a much visited landmark. At fifteen metres tall it is the highest tower along this stretch of coast. It was built during Moorish rule up to the late fifteenth century. Artola Beach is backed by dunes which have been designated an environmental reserve, making it a rare stretch of beach not developed as accommodation.

It is a farther six kilometres to our own base in Elviria. There are plenty of good beach bars and eateries along here, and a lovely view of the curving coast down to Marbella; backed by high mountains, Gibraltar shimmering off the coast in the far distance.

So, it’s time to step off the humdrum, relax and enjoy our cocktail by the pool. One theme song suggests itself. Massiel singing El Amor. Though it’s hardly relaxing, what with the veins on her forehead snapping like high tension wires in a gale as she reaches, um, crescendo. It chimes with the mood, though.

El amor es un rayo de luz indirecta

Una gota de paz, una fe que despierta

Un zumbido en el aire, un punto en la niebla

Un perfil, una sombra, una pausa, una espera

El amor es un suave, rumor que se acerca

Un timbre a lo lejos, una brisa ligera

Una voz en la calma, un aroma de menta

Un después, un quizá, una vez, una meta

Massiel, Maris de los Angeles Santamaria Espinosa, is a well known Spanish singer. She covers a broad range in her repertoire, from popular to Brecht/Weil, and protest songs which annoyed Franco and Pinochet. She sang the winning song for Spain, La La La in Eurovision 1968, after the original singer Joan Serrat withdrew when not allowed to sing in Catalan. Congratulations!