48 hours in Marbella: old town, Golden Mile and Puerto Banús
A two-day plan for a first visit to Marbella that balances the whitewashed old town, the Golden Mile and Puerto Banús, with notes on where to swim and where to eat by neighborhood.
Getting there and getting around
Marbella is about 60 km west of Málaga airport. Avanza runs direct buses from the airport to Marbella's bus station roughly every hour; the trip takes around 40 minutes and a ticket costs between €7 and €11. A taxi or pre-booked car takes about 45 minutes using the AP-7 toll road. If you plan to go beyond the town, rent a car at the airport, but do not expect to park in the old town: the underground garages at Avenida del Mar and the Parque de la Alameda are the practical options.
The best months are May, June, September and October, when the sea is warm enough to swim, restaurants are open and the summer crowds have not arrived or have gone home. July and August are busy and expensive. From November to March the town is quiet and mild, but most beach clubs close.
Day one, morning: the old town
Start in Plaza de los Naranjos, the square of orange trees laid out after the Christian conquest of 1485 as the civic heart of the town. The town hall, the Casa del Corregidor and the small Ermita de Santiago, Marbella's oldest church, stand around it. From here the old town is a grid of whitewashed lanes, bougainvillea and small plazas, with fragments of the Moorish castle walls behind the square and the Iglesia de la Encarnación a few streets east. The Museo del Grabado Español Contemporáneo, a print museum in the 16th-century Hospital Bazán, is a cool, quiet half hour. Have coffee under the orange trees, then walk down through the Parque de la Alameda, a 19th-century garden of tiled benches, to the Avenida del Mar, a pedestrian avenue lined with bronze sculptures by Salvador Dalí that leads to the sea.
Day one, afternoon: swim and the Golden Mile
The town beaches, Playa de Venus and La Fontanilla, are right at the foot of the Avenida del Mar and are fine for a first swim. For something more polished, walk or drive west along the Golden Mile, the four-kilometer stretch of hotels and villas between the town and Puerto Banús. It grew up around the Marbella Club, the hotel Prince Alfonso of Hohenlohe opened in 1954 and the reason Marbella became fashionable at all. Nagüeles beach, behind the Golden Mile hotels, has beach clubs that rent loungers by the day; prices rise sharply in July and August, and a reservation is needed in summer.
Dinner on day one is best in the old town, where the lanes around Plaza de los Naranjos and Calle San Lázaro hold dozens of small restaurants with courtyard tables. Spanish dinner hours apply: kitchens fill from 9 pm, and arriving at 7:30 pm means an empty room.
Day two, morning: Puerto Banús and the market
Puerto Banús, seven kilometers west, opened in 1970 as a purpose-built marina village and is now the coast's showcase of superyachts, sports cars and luxury boutiques. It is at its most pleasant early in the morning, before the shops open, when you can walk the quays and have breakfast looking at the boats. On Saturdays the street market in Nueva Andalucía, by the bullring just inland from the port, is a good counterpoint: produce, leather, ceramics and a lot of bargaining.
Lunch options cluster in three places: the marina itself for people-watching, the beach restaurants on Playa de Puerto Banús and Playa del Duque for grilled fish, and San Pedro Alcántara, ten minutes further west, where the renovated boulevard and the streets around the church have good-value local restaurants.
Day two, afternoon: dunes or mountains
Head east for a quieter coast. Cabopino, 15 kilometers from the center, has a small marina and the Dunas de Artola, a protected dune system with pine woods and wooden boardwalks that was declared a natural monument in 2001 and has survived the development on either side of it. The beach here is wide and less built up than anything nearer town. The alternative is to drive inland: the road to Ojén and the Refugio de Juanar climbs quickly into the Sierra Blanca, with viewpoints over the whole bay and, for the energetic, the start of the La Concha trail, which is a full-day hike rather than an afternoon stroll.
For the last dinner, choose by area. The Golden Mile hotels and the restaurants around Puente Romano are the formal option and need bookings days ahead in season. Elviria and Las Chapas, east of town, have relaxed beach restaurants. San Pedro and the old town remain the best value.
Practical notes
Lunch runs from 2 pm to 4 pm and dinner from 9 pm. Tipping is modest, around 5 to 10 percent for good service. Beach clubs and the Golden Mile hotels expect smart-casual dress in the evening. Many shops close on Sunday and over the afternoon siesta. Marbella's main hospital, the Hospital Costa del Sol, is on the A-7 east of town, and pharmacies are plentiful. Book everything, including beach loungers, for July and August; for the rest of the year you can be spontaneous.
