Estepona Things to Do

Archaeological Museum
Paleontology Museum
Bull Fighting Museum
Ethnographic Museum
Flamenco and other art exhibitions.

On the outskirts of the town, heading towards Gibraltar is the town bullring (pictured left). This white-washed building has a strange architectural style, similar in style to that of Dali's work. The bullring offers bullfights on a regular basis, as well as doubling up for concerts and filmshows.

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El Cristo Beach is situated just outside the town, to the west of the Marina. This beach is situated in a delightful sheltered cove, ideal for children and boasts two new chiringuitos. It's ideal location means longer hours of sunshine, making it a particular favourite for serious sunbathers. This beach has become increasingly popular in recent years and tends to get quite crowded on summer weekends. It has a good atmosphere with music playing at two of the beach bars.

The town beach 'La Rada' - is fab - it is blue flag and runs for 2.4 Kilometers with a great promenade full of activity parks for kids and some good chiringuitos.

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Really enjoyed wandering around the old part of Estepona town. Lots of lovely windows brimming with geraniums, traditional Spanish courtyards featuring the Saints (pictured) and some quaint shops and bars.

Find Calle Terraza and Real and pop into one of the traditional bars on Calle Caridad for an ice-cold fino (sherry) and tapa.

A must visit, is the Plaza de las Flores. Walk west to view the Clock Tower, the municipal market, the old town hall and the Castle of San Luis .

Lovely!

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It was Boxing Day, December 26 when we finally decided to just sit tight for once and enjoy where we were on such a beautiful day and with such great surroundings! Because the sun was shining, after returning from our morning beach excursion in Estepona, we decided to simply sit back and enjoy the amazing surroundings at our B&B.

It was great to take a day off from driving to enjoy a beer or two in the sunshine while enjoying the visual pleasure of this swimming pool area, while reading a book! The owners kept a supply of cold San Miguel beers in our breakfast refrigerator so I helped myself to a few (he said they were free but I just had to give him a few Euros for having them so handy). We also enjoyed some chips and our usual sandwiches while relaxing. Despite the mid-teen C temperatures, the water was still holding at a much lower level if one was brave enough to actually dip their feet in for a brief time, such as Sue in the 4th photo.

With the owners away for the day, we had the place to ourselves - no other guests. Frankly, I could get used to this life, especially after seeing on the internet that it was approaching -50 C back in Regina, Canada! One of our most enjoyable days in Spain.

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Considering that we roamed around Andalusia for three weeks, we actually spent very little time on the Mediterranean beaches themselves (being late December/early January did not help)! We just had to wet our hands on a beach at Moraira, east of Alicante when we first arrived on the coast but it was not until 9 days later that we had our next seaside opportunity - in Estepona. As we pulled into town after our drive from Cadiz, we parked on one of Estepona's coastal streets and took in this view as Sue's sister accessed some cash from a banking machine to pay upcoming B&B expenses.

We ate at Trader Vic's restaurant along this shore the next evening (my 'Restaurant' tips), so returned in the morning to see what the coast was like in the clear light of day. The palm trees in front of the complex in which the restaurant was located looked like they had taken a beating from a storm or two (2nd photo) and the beach itself had more rocks and dark sand than I was expecting (3rd photo). However, that did not bother me since I was not planning much in the way of beach activities anyway - I just like being by the water no matter what it is like.

We continued along the beach toward that distant treed headland, but one has to deal with various rivulets of water running down into the sea - often so wide that a detour inland toward solid ground is required if you wish to get across without getting your footwear soaked! However, a good thing was the number of flattened stones that could be used to see how many times they could be made to skip on the relatively calm waters of the Mediterranean.

When we finally did reach that headland, it was worth the effort because of the abundance of blossoming flowers and cacti (4th and 5th photos) as well as the opportunity to watch a couple of the locals trying their hand at fishing from the shore (my 'Local Customs' tip).

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It was about noon by the time we made it to Ronda and found a car-park in which to ditch our rental vehicle. Even though it was mostly overcast when we arrived, Ronda did not take long to impress us by both its natural setting high above the Guadalevin River and its man-made attractions! I could already see that this place was going to have a VT-page of its own!

The town is located about 750-m above sea level in a mountainous area and with a magnificent view out over the wide valley as shown here. The modern town is bisected by the gorge created by the Guadalevin River, providing a spectacular setting for the famous Parador de Ronda hotel where you have a choice of falling off into either the gorge at the side or the valley in front (2nd photo)!

Ronda's history goes back more than 2000 years, with evidence of successive settlement by the Celts, Romans, Moors and finally today's Spanish rulers. The fact that the city is perched on the edge of a cliff and also has a river gorge made it a great defensive position, but it also meant that bridges were needed to get across that gorge. The latest and greatest is the Puente Nuevo (New Bridge), completed some time in the late 1700s according to various records (3rd photo). This one would make a great bungee-jumping site, especially with the view you would have from the bridge looking toward the old Moorish part of town (4th photo)!

We enjoyed our Christmas Day visit to Ronda, but just wished that we had more time to fully enjoy its attractions before returning to our B&B in Estepona.

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Our main objective while staying in Estepona was always to make the short 66-km drive (a little more than an hour) to Spain's world famous mountain village of Ronda. On the morning of our first full day since arriving, the weather forecast looked good, so by 10 AM we were off, driving east a short distance before turning off the coastal highway at San Pedro de Alcantara as we began our climb into the Sierra Bermeja mountain range.

Moves are afoot to make this another of Spain's national parks, because of its very rare red peridotite rocks and as well as its thick cover of Spanish Fir and Pine trees. Major species living in this coastal range include Golden Eagles, Mountain Goats and Otters as well as many reptilian types. As for geography, about a half-hour into our drive we must have been near the impressive 1919-m La Torrecilla mountain, the highest in this range - but we could not see it's peak due to high cloud cover. However, we did stop to look in the other direction - westward toward a distant 'white village' (2nd & 3rd photos). From maps, my guess is that it was probably Algatocín, perched 720-m above sea level, a small village with less than 1,000 inhabitants and with its population continuing to dwindle.

You may as well plan on enjoying the scenery on this section of highway, because with all its switchbacks as it scales the mountainsides, speed is just not going to happen! Traffic was not bad on Christmas morning.

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The Estepona Bullring was inaugurated in 1972, and it is quite peculiar in its shape. I personally don't like bullfights, not that I’m against them but it’s just I don't really see it much of an attraction, but for many visitors it is a unique experience and a bullfight is what we could call 'the symbol of Spain'. The bull in Spain does get killed.