New Golden Mile, Estepona's gem

Torre Bermeja and Cabo Bermejo, designed by internationally renowned architect Melvin Villarroel and boasting his signature gardens and round edges. Both Los Granados Playa and Los Granados del Mar offers luxury apartments within a gated complex, with 24 hours security, and sporting facilities with the same quality provided by the Los Granados developers along all their developments. The Kempinski Hotel Private Residences are a great solution for clients looking to enjoy the services of a five star hotel and the rental management offered by the Hotel. Emare is a secure beachfront complex with 28 amazingly large apartments each with a minimum of 3 large parking spaces, directly connected through a private lift. Additionally, beachside complexes such as Las Nayades, Heaven Beach, Alcazaba Beach, Dominion Beach or Bahía de Velerín offer good quality homes at more affordable prices than the previous developments as well as luxury services such as 24-hour security, and sporting facilities in some cases.

The areas dedicated to villas on beachside positions are quite few, actually. Casasola, which just borders the sought after residential area of Guadalmina but is separated from it by the Guadalmina river, is home to substantially large villas, most of which have been refurbished or are in need of some updating as the average age of a property here is around 25 years. El Paraiso Barronal is becoming increasingly popular with newly built villas, some of them right on the beachfront, and others within walking distance to the sea. Well consolidated El Presidente, is home to villas, townhouses and some apartment complexes.

The mountainside areas of the New Golden Mile have been greatly developed over the years, but there are some areas, such as Los Flamingos, that still offer the possibility for further development and building plots. Los Flamingos is home of the famous 5 star Villa Padierna Hotel where Michelle Obama stayed in the summer of 2010, and is a gated area of villas, and apartments boasting stunning views from complexes such as Royal Flamingos or Alanda Tee 5. Further on along the coast towards San Pedro is El Paraiso, an established residential area where you can find villas, apartments and townhouses and where there are few plots available for development. El Paraiso has seen an increase in demand since 2019, with more and more of the older homes being bought to renovate.

Service-wise, the New Golden Mile offers pretty much all your basic services, from cafes, restaurants and supermarkets to sporting facilities and banking. The boutiques, restaurants and yachting marina of Puerto Banus are a 15-minute drive away as well as the yachting marina of Estepona.

The majority of the neighbourhoods of the NewGolden Mile are safe and secure, and very popular with families.

The International School Estepona is a British primary school and nursery, situated in El Paraiso, which was established in 2004. The programme follows the Montessori ethic of teaching and the British National Curriculum.

The Atalaya International School (3 to 18 yrs) offers both Spanish and English education including GCE and IB. The school, set on 16.000 sqm. of land provides a 6-route bus service from Sotogrande to Elviria, as well as excellent sports facilities and an in-house kitchen.

Mayfair Academy, founded in 1997 and located in Atalaya Park, takes children from the ages of 3-18. Its programme is based on the Cambridge Pathway and the British National Curriculum.

The Atlas American School in Málaga, located in the Selwo Hills region of Estepona, provides an American program of studies from kindergarten to grade 12 (K1-G12).

Colegio San José, is a reputed Spanish bilingual education centre with two schools, one in Guadalmina, for children up to the age of 11 and the other in Estepona city, from ages 12 to 18. It provides bus service from Elviria to Sotogrande.

The best known hotels are: the Kempinski Hotel, Las Dunas, Ikos Andalucia and the Senator Banus, all of them being 5-star.

There are also four 4-star hotels on the beach side such as : Sol Marbella Estepona Atalaya Park, Globales Paraíso Beach, Globales Playa Estepona and Iberostar Costa del Sol. In addition, four more are located on the upper side of CN-340 road: Oh Nice Caledonia, Costalita Gold Bel-air Platinum and TRH Paraiso and Exe Estepona Thalasso & Spa, for Adults only.

There are three golf courses in the New Golden Mile: El Paraíso, an 18-hole course designed by the famed Gary Player in 1973 and Atalaya Golf & Country Club, with two tracks: the old one inaugurated in 1968 and the new one, each with 18 holes .

There is also La Resina Golf & country Club, a 9-hole golf course, par 3 and 4, a pleasant circuit which leads through lakes and tropical gardens.

Los Flamingos Golf, belonging to the municipality of Benahavis, is an 18-hole golf course located next to Anantara Villa Padierna Palace hotel.

The Estepona Tennis Club, located above AP-7 next to Forest Hills urbanisation, has eleven tennis courts, of which five are clay courts and six are hard courts.

A family orientated club Bel Air Tennis & Padel club, which opened in 1974, has six hard courts and five clay courts.

A brand new club was founded last year, RozaRossa, with top facilities is in El Paraiso area.

Villa Padierna padel and tennis club, just a few metres from the beach, still remain as one of the favourites options of the clients who live in the area.

Conveniently located on the CN-340, km. 162. Hospiten Estepona, belongs to an international network of private hospitals which provides all sorts of medical specialities.

This area has its public health centre (Centro de Salud) run by the Andalucían Regional Public Health Service, located in Cancelada.

Selwo Aventura is the Costa del Sol’s very own wildlife safari park, offering an authentic wildlife experience, on more than 100 ha and with more than 1000 animals in semi-freedom conditions, in different ecosystems. Additionally there are a couple of children’s indoor parks, ideal for rainy or colder days, Mundomania – which also has an exterior area with water fountains, small football pitch and jumping beds-, and Kidz Kingdom located in Bel-Air for children from 0-9 years, both with seating areas for parents and coffee shops.

The School of Equestrian Art, is one of the most famous centres in Spain. Being awarded with the highest ranking- 4 stirrups – it has a grand range of facilities with over 30 well schooled horses and ponies, and British Horse Society trained and qualified staff.

Worth a visit are the Prehistoric Necropolis of Corominas ( in West Estepona), a museum opened in 2007 that has five small original dolmens dating from about 3,000 BC and the Palaeontology Museum of Estepona (Museos Municipales) , opposite the Estepona Marina.

Along its vast coastline, which stretches from Guadalmina to Estepona, the New Golden Mile is also dotted with some of the Costa del Sol’s best beach clubs.

These are the principal ones along the New Golden Mile: Trocadero Estepona Beach Club, Spiler beach club at Kempinski Hotel, Barraka Beach in Villacana, Salduna Beach, Sonora Beach next to Los Granados Playa complex and La vela azul.

Health and beauty options in the New Golden Mile include: Healthouse Las Dunas , the Kempinski Hotel Bahia Beach Resort, Anantara Villa Padierna Palace Hotel and Hotel Selenza Estepona Thalasso & Spa.

Try the Baltazar Bar & Grill at the Kempinski Hotel, the wonderful beachside setting of the TikiTano Beach Restaurant & Lounge and Cat’s Kitchen, for artisanal beer, live music and atmosphere. Alternatively there is a wide range of restaurants of different types of food such as : The garden by La Rosa in Atalaya, Fons in Coto La Serena, Incontro and El Carnicero 1993 in Cancelada, Tanino Restaurante Bar, in Benamara and Namis, opposite Las Dunas Hotel.

Along this strip of land known as the New Golden Mile, there are a series of shopping centres that make life easier in the different urbanisations, because they have different services such as technical, medical or gastronomic, and therefore avoid the need to travel to the cities, be it Estepona, San Pedro or Marbella.

There are also the so-called “mercadillos” which offer everything from fruit, vegetables, flowers, new and/or second-hand clothes and shoes, and which are usually held in the different urbanisations. For example, on Saturdays from 9:00h. to 14:00h. there is one in Atalaya.

Set to reopen in 2023, Laguna Village 2.0, next to Kempinski Hotel, will be a 13,000sqm. mall that will include a wide offer of shops and restaurants.

It’s roughly an hour’s drive from the Malaga-Costa del Sol International Airport or Gibraltar Airport to the New Golden Mile. In both cases, it depends significantly on whether you take the faster AP-7 toll road or the public highways, and the time of year.

The archaeological site “Villa Romana de las Torres” in Guadalmansa, which was excavated for the first time in 1915-1916. Subsequent excavations in 1929 revealed the existence of a Roman villa and salting factory, the construction of which was dated between the end of the 2nd century and the beginning of the 3rd century A.D. Subsequently, in 1990, several soundings were carried out which demonstrated its reuse as a necropolis.

On the coast there are the coastal watchtowers, which are a series of watchtowers built in the 14th and 15th centuries on the coasts of southern Spain to defend them from attacks by Berber pirates. This coastal defence and surveillance system lasted until the 19th century and consisted of seven watchtowers in total in the municipality of Estepona , five of which are sited in the New Golden Mile: Padrón or Paredón tower, Velerín tower, Guadalmansa tower, Saladillo tower and Casasola or Baños tower.

The postcode of the New Golden Mile is 29688