MARBELLA

Only 45 minutes from Sotogrande

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Marbella has it all!  from a small fishing village some forty years ago it has grown into the major tourist attraction it is today! and yet it has managed to keep some of the charm of it's past.

Follows is a brief history of the Town which we feel describes it best :-

Marbella town was founded over 3600 years ago by the Phoenicians, who installed their trading posts and settlements all along the southern Spanish coast.

In the third century BC the Romans came and settled, giving its first name. They called it Salduba.

Salduba was much more a trading post and agricultural settlement than a fishing village due to its strategic situation on the Augustus Highway (an important Roman route). There is reason to believe that Ricardo Soriano Avenue and its extension Ramon and Cajal Street run along this historic route.

Roman ruins remains can still be found in both the Old Town and Marbella's  monuments. By visiting the town wall, situated on the outskirts of the Old town, one finds signs of Roman presence. When the Moors later occupied Marbella they used all the cut stones they could find to build with. Proof of this can be seen, as there are Roman remains plainly visible in the wall's structure.

After Roman rule and a short Visigoth period, the Iberian peninsula was invaded in 711 by the Moors.. They disembarked just along the coast from Marbella on the beaches of Tarifa.

Muslim occupation, which lasted until the year 1485 (774 years) was the birth of Marbella's  Old Town as it stands today. Its present name comes from that time. The Moors called it Marbilha.

Moorish presence is plainly visible in Marbella's  fortress wall. This is popularly known as "The Castle". Within these walls, Marbella was first formed. It didn't take long before village spread beyond the walls into a labyrinth of narrow streets that today make up the Old part of the town.

The geographical limits of this Moorish "Medina" can be easily seen. Where they built there is an abundance of exceptionally narrow, winding streets. Typical of the way the Moors built at the time. These streets still offer refuge from the harshness of the summer sun and allow one to walk in the shade throughout the Old Town.

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