Benahavis

Benahavis is a white village of narrow, Moorish streets set on the slopes of the Serranía de
Ronda, minutes from the coast between Marbella and Estepona. From its hills you can see more
than a hundred kilometres of Spanish coastline and a good stretch of North Africa. It has three
rivers, a gorge that cuts across the access road, an unusual density of restaurants and some of
the most private urbanisations on the Costa del Sol.

We know it from the inside. Eight of the eleven projects we have built sit in this
municipality, so what follows is not a copied tourist entry: it is what you see driving up here day
after day.

Where Benahavis is

It is an inland municipality rather than a coastal one, although its boundary reaches almost
to the sea between Marbella and Estepona. You turn off the main coast road at the Estepona
boundary and take the road that climbs to the village. The ground rises quickly and the first
foothills of the sierra appear.

The stretch everyone remembers is Las Angosturas: the viaduct over
the gorge cut by the river Guadalmina, with high peaks on either bank. The Town Hall calls it
one of the finest landscapes in the municipality, and in practice the drive up is the first part of
the visit.

The village: white streets and a 10th-century fortress

The centre is small and best walked: narrow white streets on a distinctly Moorish layout,
nearly all of them opening onto sunlit squares. It was founded by the Moors under the shelter of
a 10th-century fortress, and that mix of ancient origin and very
contemporary present is what defines it today.

It is not a museum village. It has its own life and its shops stay open, and that is the real
difference from other inland Malaga villages that empty out off season.

The three rivers

Three rivers rise in the Serranía de Ronda, cross the municipality and run to the
Mediterranean. Each has its own history, and its name comes from it:

• Guadalmina, twenty-eight kilometres. The "river of the mines". It skirts
  the eastern side of the village, once held defensive strategic importance and its waters drove
  the flour mills.
• Guadalmansa. The "river of the oil mill". It crosses the municipality
  north to south along its western side.
• Guadaiza, twenty-two kilometres. The "river of Aixa", after Boabdil's
  mother. It runs past the ruins of Daidín.

They explain the landscape: valleys, gorges and a biodiversity you do not expect ten
minutes from the beach.

Eating in Benahavis

The municipality presents itself as having one of the highest densities of restaurants in
Europe. Worth stating precisely: that is the Town Hall's own claim, not an independent
measurement. But the effect is obvious on foot, with busy streets and long opening hours in a
centre this small.

If you are weighing up living here it counts for more than it sounds. It is the difference
between an urbanisation with everything twenty minutes away by car and a village where you
walk to dinner.

The urbanisations

Some of the best-known urbanisations on the western Costa del Sol sit inside the boundary:
La Zagaleta, El Madroñal, El Paraíso
Alto, La Quinta and Los Arqueros. They are
built into the landscape and backed by golf courses at different levels of play, which means
year-round golf within a few kilometres of each other.

They are not interchangeable. Altitude changes, real distance to the sea changes, plot size
changes and the type of community changes. We have area guides for La Zagaleta, El
Madroñal and El Paraíso if you want the detail on
each.

Building and renovating in Benahavis

It is what we have been doing there for years: four villas in El Madroñal, two in El Paraíso
Alto, one in La Quinta and a full apartment renovation in Los Arqueros. Each with its own
before-and-after gallery on our construction page.

One warning almost nobody gives, and it saves trouble: Benahavis is a separate
municipality from Marbella, with its own town hall. The planning procedures are not
the same and are not filed in the same place. We set out the general framework in our guide to the building licence, but the actual
filing has to go to whichever town hall applies.