Marbella, a sporting city

Marbella is the Costa del Sols most prized possession, logically it boasts an amazing number of fantastically sunny and hot days. This translates to Marbella being a city of reference able to enjoy year round outdoor sports for both tourists and permanent residents, without having to worry about the weather! Professional sportsmen travel to Marbella to be able to practice their pre-season sports under our nearly guaranteed sunny skies. With all the outdoor sports available in Marbella, you can exercise nearly every muscle in your body and feel the adrenalin run through your blood. Marbella Unique Properties have first hand knowledge of the most popular sports on the Costa del Sol and we would like to share them with you to liven up the days when need to release energy the most.

The Spanish kings favourite sport has to be top of the list, of course we are talking about the game of football. With a high rate of tourism and British residents, the most practiced game in the world and Europes most popular sport is always seen played on the Costa del Sol, despite of its English origin.  Marbella town has its own team Marbella FC and currently plays in second division B in Spain. A large variety of football pitches and sports centres are found throughout Marbella, offering easy availability and great facilities. Due to the high standard and facilities that Marbella offers, many world class professional teams come to practice their pre-season and stages training during the winter months, using the Marbella Football Center facilities located in San Pedro de Alcantara, including some teams such as: Bayern Munich, Russian Anzhi, Dinamo from Kiev and Guangzhou from China, bringing world class players such as: Samuel Eto’o, Franck Ribery or Fabio Cannavaro (winner of the golden ball and world champion in 2006).  In addition to the basic game of football, Marbella can offer other football based sports including indoor football, beach football and the new craze that has awoken our city “foot-pool” which is a mix of both football and dance, the Marbella football team now play it as well as the Dinamo team from Kiev and the Hotel PYR in Puerto Banus hosted the first tournament of this unqiue sport.

There is a strong following for racquet games in Marbella and one of the newest and most fashionable games that is currently played is the game of Paddle, as we mentioned in one of our previous blogs, the game was originally invented in Marbella and is played on an international level with one of the most famous academies in the Puente Romano Hotel on Marbellas Golden Mile. Apart from paddle, Marbella has a long tradition with the game of tennis, housing tennis courts in many private villas and property developments as well as specialist tennis clubs including for example the “Manolo Santana tennis club” in the area of Nueva Andalucia, first opened in 1997 by the famous Spanish player himself.

Logically being in Marbella, a place of beautiful beaches and great blue sea, you can find many water sports and beach sporting activities that you wouldent be able to find in many cities. We already mentioned the game of beach football, so we must include other more acclimated leisure sports that even young children can enjoy such as the game of Frisbee, building sandcastles and other beach games.  With regard to watersports, Marbella has a great deal of options including jet skiing, water skiing, paddle surf, flyboard, boat trips and fishing and whale watching amongst many others.

From the beach you can take a walk along the stunning and impeccably kept promenade and enjoy sporting activities such as cycling or a Marbella favourite running, jogging, since April the town of Marbella opened a calisthenics circuit, a form of training where the excercises focus more on the movements of the muscle groups instead of resistence and you use your bodies own weight as a tool. Within the wheel sport groups besides the aforementioned cycling, Marbella town hall have installed various skate parks, where you can see amazing and breathtaking 360 turns and all kinds of stunts and tricks or parkour.

We cannot miss mentioning the jewel of the crown in Marbellas outdoor sporting activities, which is the game of golf. With over 70 golf courses on the Costa del Sol, Marbella is Europes capital when talking about this game. In the mid 80’s children still played football through Marbellas streets. In the 90’s a new craze arrived and the game of golf took over the city. Marbella soon met with a sport that was ideal for the location and climate, with a soft geographical landscape, warm weather almost absent from rainfall year round, the wide open spaces from the mountains to the sea and a growing tourist population helped promote and give presence to this elegant sport. In the late 80’s golfers began to include Malaga as a holiday destination, in the 90’s Marbella won the title of “Golf Capital”. Marbella enjoys a large variety of golf courses each one different to the last, with many holes to play, the heart of the golfing area in Marbella is Nueva Andalucia, well known as the golf valley, with unique golf courses including La Quinta, Los Arqueros, Dama de Noche, Los Naranjos, Aloha etc… where you can enjoy a paradise like climate and unbeatable views from the sea to the mountains.

Moving away from Marbellas beach environment, the city offers many other activities in the mountain areas. One of the most popular sporting activities is mountaineering and the climb to the top of the closest mountain named “La Concha” which Marbellas microclimate and unique environment allows you to enjoy. Various trekking and hiking trails are available. Other great and very popular activities include Quadding through the Benahavis mountains, where adrenaline rushes and endless beautiful landscapes will be the finishing touches to your stay.

As you can now see, Marbella is a sporting city and it is exciting to be able to enjoy sports and relax in so many ways. If you are looking to participate in any of the sports mentioned and or need futher information, please contact Marbella Unqiue Properties, we are happy to help.