A Guide to La Zagaleta
La Zagaleta is one of the most luxurious estates in the world. An inland gated nature reserve of 420 luxury villas on 2,200 acres with the dramatic peaks of the Serrania de Ronda as a backdrop,…
Let’s get one thing clear from the start: it’s never exactly a bad time to visit southern Spain, as on any given day of any given week all year round, there’s something going on. However from full-on fiestas to solemn religious ceremonies, via annual harvests and music festivals, we’ve picked out a few of the very best times to visit.
Planning a Visit around the Weather
Weather-wise, when’s the best time of year to visit Andalucia? It’s a question that gets put to us a lot here at the Luxury Villa Collection. And the answer we always have to give is… it very much depends.
Andalucia’s a big region – four times as large as that default indicator of size, Wales – plus, it’s also an area of huge geographical diversity. So while you may have lovely winter sunshine and 20 degrees down on the coast, the snow might well be falling on the mountains inland.
Let’s focus on the positives, though, and the average temperatures in the region’s most sun-soaked province, Malaga:
Traditional & Religious Events
Los Reyes Magos – Various towns and Cities; 5th January 2020: The epiphany on 6th January, is celebrated in Spain with a national holiday and gifts are said to be left by The Three Kings for children. The night before, The Three Kings visit most towns and cities in the form of a parade, festivities usually begin around 17.00hrs. Children collect sweets that are thrown by the kings and their helpers.
Carnival – Cadiz; 4th to 10th March 2019: The weekend before Lent is a massive party weekend in southern Spain and nowhere does it bigger than the city of Cadiz. It’s a noisy, messy affair where everyone takes to the streets in fancy dress and parties until sunrise.
Semana Santa – Seville; 14th April to 21st April 2019: With the sound of brass and the scent of incense on the night air, every Easter the streets of Seville are filled with the processions of Semana Santa (or Holy Week). While Seville undoubtedly puts on the biggest and grandest display of devotion, other places of note include all the big cities – Granada, Malaga and Cordoba especially – while the small town of Velez-Malaga is a spectacular and lesser-known alternative.
Las Cruces de Mayo – Granada; 2nd May 2019: Another city, another full-scale party dressed up as a religious occasion. While the crosses which are displayed in squares throughout the city are undoubtedly lovely, Granada’s Las Cruces is, in reality, just a great excuse for a party. And why not?
Patios de Cordoba; 6th to 19th May 2019: North, south, east or west, spring is one of the best times to visit Spain, wherever in the country you might be thinking of heading. Nowhere is that more the case than in Cordoba. In May, some of the oldest and most beautiful patios of the town’s historic centre are decked out in their full floral finery and opened up to the public. Unmissable.
El Rocio Pilgrimage – Huelva; Pentecost/depending on Easter: One of the region’s most impressive devotional displays, up to a million people have been known to make the journey to this remote church to see the Virgin make her spectacular appearance in the early hours of Pentecost Monday. With El Rocio sitting right in the heart of the Doñana National Park, it makes for a great excuse to explore one of Spain’s great natural wildernesses, too.
Music & Nightlife Events
Beach club opening parties, Marbella and Puerto Banus; mid-late April: Something of a curtain-raiser for summer on the Costa, the beach clubs throw everything they’ve got into their annual opening parties. Nikki Beach, perhaps the best of the bunch, got their season underway in 2019 on 18th April with most of the others falling either side of it.
Granada international festival of music and dance; TBC usually during June: While the flamenco on display during Granada’s annual festival is fantastic (headliners include Eva Yerbabuena), it’s undoubtedly the setting that steals the show. Sitting under the stars in the gardens of the Generalife accompanied by some top-class dance and exquisite views of historic Granada is an unforgettable experience.
Starlite Marbella; from 5th July – 22nd August: Marbella‘s music festival is now a firm fixture on the Andalucia events calendar. 2019’s big international names include Diana Krall, Sting, Supertramp, Ben Harper and The Beach Boys while Miguel Poveda and Jose Merce top the line-up of Spanish performers.
Flamenco festivals; June-September: while Andalucia’s greatest art form is very definitely a year-round affair (check out our guide to Flamenco), it really heats up every year along with the summer temperatures. Malaga’s summer alone is studded with superb flamenco events from Alhaurin de la Torre (June) and Alora (July) to Antequera and Ronda (both August) before, finally, the main event of the Malaga Bienal Festival takes place in early to mid-September.
Ferias
Spain as a whole celebrates more local virgins’ and saints’ day than you can shake a stick at. But if there’s a capital of the religious holiday, it has to be Andalucia. Aside from the religious elements, they mean one thing: letting your hair down and partying in a colourful blur of flamenco dresses, fairgrounds, dancing and drinking under the stars.
Ferias are held from April until September and are one of Andalucia’s greatest spectacles. In terms of city ferias, a few of the main ones of note are:
- Seville’s Feria de Abril: 4th to 11th May 2019
- Feria de Caballo in Jerez de la Frontera; 11th to 18th May 2019
- Feria de Nuestra Señora de la Salud, Cordoba; 25th May to 1st June 2019
- Feria de San Bernabé, Marbella; 9th to 15th June 2019
- Feria de Malaga; 15th to 24th August 2019
Gastronomy, Food & Wine Events
Down in Andalucia, the seasons – and the harvesting of the fruit of land and sea – still have a huge impact on people’s everyday lives. Spring sees olives, oranges, avocados, asparagus and the Almadraba fishing of bluefin tuna in Cadiz. By the late summer the region is exploding into wine harvests, while come the autumn the almonds and figs are bursting.
There are simply too many food and wine festivals in the region to name them all, but here are a couple that come with the LVC seal of approval:
Las Fiestas de la Vendimia y Otoño, Jerez de la Frontera; 1st to 15th September: One of the oldest ferias in Spain, Jerez’s annual Sherry shindig is a blur of wine crushing, bodega visits and tastings, flamenco, horses and general festivities.
Axarquia food festivals; August to September: this mountainous region to the east of Malaga has been getting something of a name for itself in recent years for its cluster of food-related festivals – and all the singing, dancing and general celebrations that comes with them.
- Dia de Morcilla (blood sausage), Canillas de Aceituno; 28th April 2019
- Dia de la Cereza (cherry), Alfarnate; TBC around 22nd June 2019
- Fiesta del Gazpacho; Alfarnatejo; 3rd August 2019
- Noche del Vino (sweet wine), Competa; 15th August 2019
- Fiesta del Ajoblanco (cold almond soup), Almachar; 7th September 2019
- Dia de la Pasa (raisin), El Borge; 15th September 2019
Sporting Events
Moto Grand Prix – Jerez Motor Racing Circuit – 3rd to 5th May 2019: one of the biggest events on the Spanish motorsports calendar roars into Jerez every year. The second race of the Moto GP season is a big deal in Spain, and the atmosphere track-side over the course of a long weekend in May is one of the liveliest around.
Golf on the Costa del Sol: while the region’s +300 days of sunshine mean that golf is very much a year-round sport in Andalucia, the best times of year to book a golf holiday are probably spring and autumn, when you get the sunshine without the searing summer temperatures. (Have a look at our pick of the best golf courses on the Costa del Sol.)
International Polo Tournament – Sotogrande; (27th July to 1st September): Sotogrande’s Santa Maria Polo Club hosts one of the highlights of the polo calendar every summer. One of the most prestigious events in Andalucia, it’s an occasion in which to see and be seen – obligatory glass of bubbly in hand – as much as it is to watch what’s going on out on the field. Have a look at our guide for more details.
Sanlucar Horse Racing, Sanlucar de Barrameda; TBC for 2019 usually two 3 day races during August: This hell-for-leather horseback sprint along the Sanlucar sands goes all the way back to 1845. The setting’s superb and the atmosphere’s lively (with more than a drop or two of Manzanilla being supped). Best of all, though, you get right up close to the action and feel the thundering of hooves underfoot.
Ski season in the Sierra Nevada: Europe’s most southerly ski resort opens for business every year with the first snows in December, before closing up again in late April (or even on occasions in late May). Which means that you can literally spend a morning on the slopes before dropping down to the coast and hitting the beach in the afternoon.
Nature & the Great Outdoors
Flamingo migration at Fuente de Piedra; late February: For many of us bird-watching is not exactly the stuff of riveting holidays. However, seeing the flamingos at Fuente de Piedra is a little different. To catch a glimpse of them, as a vivid flash of pink against the blue sky, before they descend on the salt lakes of is one of the most beautiful natural spectacles in Europe.
Arrival of the cherry blossom, Axarquia; March (depending on the weather): Andalucia’s cherry blossom season may not be quite as well-known as Japan’s, but it’s still pretty spectacular. Alfarnate’s Ruta de las Pilas, a 12km round trip through the orchard-lined countryside, is one of the very best ways to experience it.
Beach weather; May onwards: While you can obviously stretch out on the sand at any time when the sun’s shining in southern Spain, locals tend not to venture onto them until summer has really kicked in. May and October can regularly touch on 30 degrees Celsius – more than warm enough for most of us to get the beach bag out, in other words.
Cork oak harvest – Los Alcornocales Natural Park; June-August: The serious business of the cork harvest is still carried out by hand and mule every summer in the cork forests of Los Alcornocales. A morning winding your way through the sun-dappled trees, stopping off to watch the trees being painstakingly stripped of their bark along the way, can be neatly finished up with a long, leisurely lunch in a stunning mountain town like Gaucin, Jimena de la Frontera, Ubrique or Zahara de la Sierra.
Our guide to when to visit Andalucia is far from definitive. There’s simply SO much more to see and do in this fabulous region of Spain – to the extent, in fact, that we’ve missed out, not just one but two, entire provinces in Almeria and Jaen.
So what’s stopping you? See the best of southern Spain from one of our luxury villas.
Lindsay Gregory
Array
(
[0] => WP_Post Object
(
[ID] => 76395
[post_author] => 5
[post_date] => 2019-11-04 11:29:26
[post_date_gmt] => 2019-11-04 11:29:26
[post_content] => La Zagaleta is one of the most luxurious estates in the world. An inland gated nature reserve of 420 luxury villas on 2,200 acres with the dramatic peaks of the Serrania de Ronda as a backdrop, it’s the jewel in Marbella’s crown.
The state-of-the-art houses that are included in the nature reserve are off-the-scale magnificent – huge in size with helipads, uninterrupted views and every luxury you could imagine.
A Bit of History
The land previously belonged to the Saudi businessman Adnan Khashoggi, who it is said, used the estate as his party house and hunting grounds.
The property and land went up for sale and a group of Spanish property developers bought it and put plans together to create a playground for the rich and famous in Marbella.
Each villa is unique, with their own styles depending on the specifications of the owner.
Location & Getting There
So where is La Zagaleta?
The large estate sits in Malaga province in the south of Andalucia.
It’s in the foothills of the Ronda Mountains just 25 minutes from Marbella, 18 minutes from Nuevo Andalucia and the nearest beach. It's 20 minutes from the village of Benahavis, 40 minutes from Sotogrande port, 50 minutes from Ronda, 55 minutes from Malaga airport and just over an hour from Gibraltar airport.
La Zagaleta is very easily accessed by car or helicopter. There's heavy security surrounding the estate and entrance is on prior permission only.
What Else is in La Zagaleta?
It’s worth noting that all the facilities in La Zagaleta are for exclusive use to villa owners only; they pay an enormous service charge to be allowed to use the facilities.
Golf Course
La Zagaleta golf club is only open to villa owners and their guests. They have exclusive access to two of the Costa del Sol's best private golf courses, La Zagaleta and Los Barrancos.
La Zagaleta golf course - known as the Old Course - is to championship standard with 18 holes, Par 72 over a distance of 4800 - 6000 yards. Designed by renowned golf architect Brad Benz in 1991 and redesigned by Marc Westenborg in 2016, it’s a rewarding course with fantastic views to the coast and flanked by mountains.
The New Course, Los Barrancos, is very different to the Old Course. It’s a challenging 18-hole, Par 70 with lots of obstacles over a distance of 4356 – 5381 yards.
The Clubhouses
The hub of the estate is the spectacular Old Clubhouse, or La Zagaleta country club. Measuring 5,100m² it has an indoor/outdoor swimming pool, billiards, bowling alley, tennis courts, gourmet food supermarket, pro-golf shop and restaurants (see below).
There's also a nightclub, bars and events space where there’s a full schedule of experiences and parties planned.
The New Clubhouse is a thatched lakeside venue. A lot smaller than the Old Clubhouse, it's still just as popular with La Zagaleta residents for events or having a quick drink in the bar.
Horse Riding
La Zagaleta is home to some beautiful stables with indoor and outdoor schooling arenas.
Horses can either be kept on a full livery basis, or horses and ponies can be hired for lessons or hacks. ‘The Riding Club’ equestrian centre has a team of instructors and well-schooled horses for all levels of rider including Arab, PRE and, for the children, Farabella horses and Welsh ponies.
Restaurants
Why leave the comfort of a beautiful villa when you can enjoy a top-quality meal at home? At La Zagaleta there are Michelin starred chefs available for in-house dining throughout the estate.
However, for owners the clubhouse has two restaurants: the formal dining Old Course Restaurant; and a terrace bar restaurant that's ideal for light bites and brunches.
Famous Residents
There is private security throughout the whole of La Zagaleta - so know one really know who lives or owns houses there. It’s a place where the super-rich and famous go to be away from the limelight.
However, it is said that Hugh Grant, Rod Stewart and Vladimir Putin all have house in La Zagaleta.
What to Do Nearby
When staying in La Zagaleta, the houses are so special that it’s sometimes difficult to tear yourself away from the estate. However, if you do want to see more of the area, here's our pick of easily accessible and great day trips:
- Ronda: historic, boutique wineries and ab-so-lutely beautiful.
- Benahavis village: a great option for restaurants; have a lunch or dinner in this pretty village.
- Granada: a romantic inland city and home to the Alhambra Palace, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
- Malaga: the birthplace of Picasso with a fort, palace and Roman amphitheatre.
- Cordoba: historic city with a stunning mosque-church at its centre.
- Sevilla: one of the most beautiful cities in Europe.
- Sotogrande: a lovely port, wake boarding lake and polo hub.
When to Go
The temperatures in Marbella are some of the most comfortable in Europe. Depending on the time of year, you can expect from 16°C to 30°C for daytime temperatures. The houses in La Zagaleta are the most luxurious around, and so often have heated pools, spa areas and lots of home entertainment options. As a result, visiting in the winter is also a good option.Where to Stay
All villas have unbroken views of mountains, golf course, the sea or all three.
Our collection of La Zagaleta villas are Villa Shiro (sleeping 16), Villa Vivaldi (sleeping 15), Villa Azure (sleeping 10) Villa Matisse (sleeping 10) and Villa Verdi (sleeping 12).
[post_title] => A Guide to La Zagaleta
[post_excerpt] =>
[post_status] => publish
[comment_status] => open
[ping_status] => open
[post_password] =>
[post_name] => zagaleta-guide
[to_ping] =>
[pinged] =>
[post_modified] => 2019-12-05 22:22:06
[post_modified_gmt] => 2019-12-05 22:22:06
[post_content_filtered] =>
[post_parent] => 0
[guid] => http://theluxuryvillacollection.com/?p=76395
[menu_order] => 0
[post_type] => post
[post_mime_type] =>
[comment_count] => 0
[filter] => raw
)
[1] => WP_Post Object
(
[ID] => 75263
[post_author] => 5
[post_date] => 2019-10-25 10:27:58
[post_date_gmt] => 2019-10-25 10:27:58
[post_content] => ‘Tour’. Just the mention of the word might conjure up visions of a guide with an umbrella droning on to a large group of disinterested tourists as they traipse round a series of overcrowded sights.
It’s time to leave those preconceptions behind, though. Because tours have changed.
In southern Spain, at least, tours these days tend to be unique experiences that take you deep under the skin of a place; inspiring, enlightening and helping you to make indelible holiday memories.
We’ve worked hard to find the most enthusiastic, knowledgeable and fun tour guides to give you an access-all-areas insight to Spain. Here are a few of our favourite Marbella tours…
-
Tapas Tour of Marbella
We can all go wandering around a town or city and trust in a mix of travel guides, social media and (gulp) TripAdvisor to help us find the best places to eat. But it can be hit and miss.
The beauty of a tapas tour is that you only get taken to the best, most authentic places, know exactly what to order in each bar and also have someone on hand to give you an insight into Spanish food, too.
More information: Tomaandcoe.com
-
Off-road Buggy Tours
Leave city life behind and get into a motor powered (500cc) buggy: four wheels, low to the ground, a roll cage and the countryside to explore – this is a whole lot of fun.
Your guide will take you on a tour where you get to splash through rivers, skid round dusty corners, zoom through valleys and up mountains.
More information: Buggyfunmarbella.com
-
Marbella Helicopter Tour
Something a whole lot less exhausting but just as exhilarating is seeing the countryside surrounding Marbella from the air – by helicopter, to be exact.
There are lots of tours to choose from. A couple of our favourites are: flying over Ronda (seeing the town and its magnificent bridge perched on the gorge from the air is something else!); taking the helicopter for a romantic countryside lunch; or a tour of Marbella’s ultra-exclusive Golden Mile.
More information: Heliairmarbella.com
-
Spirit of Jerez Tour
A day trip from Marbella to Jerez is a must for wine-lovers. The home of Sherry, you can forget everything you think you know about classic Spanish vinos and be swept away by the history and culture of one of Spain’s greatest wine towns.
Aside from a guided tour with tastings of the centuries-old Sherry wineries, you get to visit the Royal Equestrian School for which Jerez is also famous. Here you can visit the stables as well as seeing an exhibition of spectacular horsemanship.
Afterwards, there’s even time for a tapas lunch sampling platters of regional specialities. Washed down with a glass or two of Sherry, of course.
More information: Tomaandcoe.com
-
A Day at an Olive Farm
Spend the day in a beautiful farmhouse (just a short drive from Marbella) learning about organic olive farming. Disconnect and reconnect with nature among fields of olives.
You’ll learn what the different olives taste and look like, and what the difference is between EVVO and lower quality oil.
You’ll also see how traditional methods are still used to harvest this golden oil which is so important to the Mediterranean diet – past, present and future.
After the tour you stay at the farmhouse for an al fresco rustic lunch of local produce, giving new meaning to ‘farm to fork’. There’s even a visit to a 15th-century chapel with its very own mosque.
More information: Tomaandcoe.com
-
Malaga Cooking Tour
Here at LVC we’ve always thought that there’s no better way to get to know a culture than exploring it through its food. And it’s with this firmly in mind that we’ve chosen this Malaga cooking day tour.
Malaga city centre is only 50mins drive from the centre of Marbella so a easy day trip. Starting the day in a fresh food market in Malaga city you’ll be guided around the meat, vegetables, spices and fish to select what dishes are going to be made for lunch.
Once you’ve stocked up on supplies, you leave the big city behind and are driven out into the countryside north of Malaga to an 18th-century farmhouse.
Here you’re guided through various Spanish staple dishes, before settling down to eat them for yourself in a setting that couldn’t be more quintessentially Andalucian.
More information: Tomaandcoe.com
-
Morocco Day Tour
One of the great things about visiting this part of the world is that you can easily add another continent to your travel log and nip across to Africa for the day.
This day tour allows you to get under the skin of Morocco’s rich cultural heritage, meander around the Kasbah, the Medina and food markets and be shielded from tourist traps and haggling. Lunch is in keeping with a sensory tour of Tangier keeping your taste buds tickled.
More information: Tomaandcoe.com
-
Uber-Luxe Moroccan Overnight Trip
For something a little bit special, you don’t get much more VIP than this overnight tour of Tangier.
You’re driven over from Marbella to Tarifa from where you can hop across the Straits, take in the sights, do some shopping, and then settle down to dinner in a private house/mansion that belonged to a Sheikh.
Contact: Tomaandcoe.com
-
Tour of Gibraltar’s Tunnels
Gibraltar is just over an hour by car from Marbella old town. The little slice of Britain in southern Spain is certainly a curious place… plus, well, it’s got monkeys. So it’s hardly surprising that it so often makes visitors’ to-do lists of things to do when visiting Marbella.
Gibraltar is very small – so why do you need a tour we hear you ask? Well, it’s simply because the interesting part of this British territory is its history.
The Rock is riddled with military tunnels with long and colourful pasts, and the best way to see and learn about them is to go with a guide who can bring it all to life for you.
More information: Gibraltar-sightseeing.com
-
Moorish Malaga City Tour
With its Pablo Picasso art heritage, shopping, diehard foodie credentials and lovely history-studded old centre, the city of Malaga offers a jam-packed day of sightseeing.
Rather than doing a whole city tour and trying to take it all on in a day, we’ve chosen a specific tour of just the Alcazaba.
Exploring this palace-fort with a guide gives you a unique insight into Moorish Malaga and a bit of general background into the captivating history of Al-Andalus – not to mention some beautiful views of the city.
This tour is only just over an hour long, so you’ve got plenty of time to see at least some of the rest of Malaga. Our top lunch tip is La Terraza de la Aduana: the views are wonderful; the service is excellent and the food’s delicious.
More information: Malagaadventures.com
11. Historic Ronda
Ronda is a inland town, just an hour from Marbella. It has a wealth of historic sights to see from bull rings to palaces. It's setting is spectacular sitting on a gorge and the old town is charming.
The tour visits all the sights in Ronda with a guide explaining the relevance of each as well as a boutique winery in a ancient monastery.
More information: Tomaandcoe.com
Why Hire a Tour Guide Rather than Going Solo?
A guide takes the pain away from doing the research. They’ll take you to the best places, order the best food and drink and impart as much knowledge as you choose to absorb.
You’ll also get the opportunity to ask any burning questions you have about Marbella, or just Spain generally, with no stone left unturned.
A lot of tours can be private or in small groups so there’s no limitations as to where you can visit and what you can see because of group size. There’s no better way to experience the real Spain than through a local who really knows their stuff.
If this has spiked interest and you want to see the best places to stay in Marbella then our collection of luxury villas are here. And for more reading on things to do while on holiday to Southern Spain then there are lots of fun self-guided day trips to do from Marbella too.
Happy discovering!
[post_title] => 11 Marbella Tours & Experiences You’ll Never Forget
[post_excerpt] =>
[post_status] => publish
[comment_status] => open
[ping_status] => open
[post_password] =>
[post_name] => 11-marbella-tours
[to_ping] =>
[pinged] =>
[post_modified] => 2019-11-04 09:34:55
[post_modified_gmt] => 2019-11-04 09:34:55
[post_content_filtered] =>
[post_parent] => 0
[guid] => http://theluxuryvillacollection.com/?p=75263
[menu_order] => 0
[post_type] => post
[post_mime_type] =>
[comment_count] => 0
[filter] => raw
)
)
1
You might also like
11 Marbella Tours & Experiences You’ll Never Forget
‘Tour’. Just the mention of the word might conjure up visions of a guide with an umbrella droning on to a large group of disinterested tourists as they traipse round a series of overcrowded…