The Costa del Sol, located in the southern of Spain, is internationally renown as one the top vacation and recreation places of the Mediterranean Sea. It enjoys a wonderful weather, with warm temperatures throughout the year.

It is often said that the province of Malaga is a small continent. Exaggerated and somewhat pretentious as this might sound, there is an element of truth in it. The province of Malaga, although the smallest in Andalusia, measuring 7.272 square kilometres, is indeed a land of contrast. Mountains, sea, rural villages and sophisticated tourist resorts. It is all here, and with the most extensive network of hotels anywhere in Spain, enjoying the contrast is one of life’s rare pleasures.

Sun and beach

It takes a battering from some elite quarters, it may not be to the taste of everybody that comes to the Costa del Sol, but sun and beach tourism is the motor that first drove the southern Spanish tourism industry into the fast lane, and this aspect of tourism is still alive and well and living on the Costa del Sol. The 161 kilometres of Malaga province coastline is mostly beach, and with most of the hotels in the province built close to the beaches, most of the finest restaurants within shouting distance of the beaches and the best climate in Europe, it is little wonder that the beach means so much to local residents and tourists alike in Malaga.

And these are excellent beaches, cleaned every day and with all the services that only a great Spanish beach can offer: bars, restaurants, showers, beach umbrellas, beach beds, palm trees, children’s parks, special access for the disabled, lifeguard services, policing, water sports and much more. And if you want none of this, but to lie on an empty beach with nobody around, or even with no clothes on, you can have that too, because there are also small coves and beaches set aside for naturists. Newcomers must be warned, however, that the coves around Maro, in the Nerja area, form part of a nature park and thus do not have beach services of any kind. One the other hand, they are among the most beautiful beaches on the entire Costa del Sol.

A golfers’ paradise

Sounds like the usual cliché, but in the case of the Costa del Sol – the Costa del Golf, as some call it – the cliché is reality. Golf is the sport on the Costa del Sol. It has more than 40 clubs, most of them beside residential developments and most in the western Costa del Sol area, making this the area with the highest concentration of golf courses in all of continental Europe. This has a lot to do with the climate, where the sun shines for about 300 days of the year, and it has a lot to do also with the natural evolution of quality tourism in the region.

These are, in the main, quality golf courses, as we can see by the number of international championships that take place on them: the Ryder Cup, the World Championship, the Spanish Open, the Volvo masters and others. A new feature of golf in the region is the large number of new courses built in the interior of the province over recent years as well, and many more in the process of being built.

Health tourism

One of the reasons for the Costa del Sol’s continuing existence as a major international tourism destination is because it has been capable of adapting to changing tourism patterns. One of these is health tourism, which goes back a long way in the province of Malaga due to the number of spa resorts of the early 20th century. This type of early health tourism failed to keep up with the changing demands of mass tourism, and more or less disappeared, leaving a number of abandoned spas around the province. In recent years, however, it has been making a comeback, and traditional spa resorts are opening once more. These days, most of the top hotels in the region offer their own thalassotherapy facilities to their clients.

Many of the villages and small towns in the more remote parts of Malaga province were built in places that were difficult to get to, an essential defensive element in days gone by. Being built on the sides of mountains, the streets are generally narrow, winding and steep, and this led to an architectural style that is exclusive to Andalusia. Now, their remote situation and layout makes them ideal for rural tourism.

The classic white village of Andalusia is small, isolated, built on a mountainside with a river or stream running through it or close to it, white-washed houses close together with red tiled roofs, a church on the higher ground that was often build over a mosque, narrow winding streets and a central plaza which is the social heart of the village or town. Almost all these towns and villages have rural lodgings available, whether as single houses in the surrounding countryside –often restored farmhouses - or specially built cottages for tourist use. They are usually available right through the year.

There is also a budding hotel industry growing up in or around these towns in the interior. The hotels are normally small or medium-sized, and have been designed in the traditional Andalusian style. Tourism in Andalusia is controlled very carefully by the environment authorities these days, especially in so far as interior tourism is concerned, and architectural projects that do not conform to traditional criteria, or are not environmental friendly, will not be granted the necessary licences to build. Many of these hotels are described in brochures as ‘hoteles con encanto,’ translating literally as ‘hotels with charm.’

Natural spaces

We began this section speaking of Malaga as a small continent, and this is easily understood by a visit to the interior of the province. One could be on another continent, and not within a relatively short driving distance of the Costa del Sol. The landscape changes dramatically from place to place, and with 23 protected spaces in the province of Malaga, there is plenty for nature lovers to choose from.

Maro-Cerro Gordo, in the municipality of Nerja. This area is made up of rock formations rising high out of the water, being part of the same geological formation of the nearby Tejeda and Almijara mountain range. The result is small, deep coves, excellent for underwater diving in the crystal-clear waters. The area is, perhaps, the most rugged stretch of coastline on the southern coastline, and it will remain virgin coastline due to its designation as a protected space.

From this part of the Costa del Sol one can look north and see the Sierras de Tejeda, Almijara and Alhama nature area, its 40,600 hectares of land making it the third biggest nature area in the province of Malaga. The mountain peaks here reach 2,000 metres above sea level, and are generally covered in snow throughout the winter. This is the Axarquía, and one of its most notable features is the contrast between the snowy mountaintops and the sub-tropical landscape closer to the sea.