The Marbella way: Being whoever you want to be

Strolling through Marbella’s charming old town down towards the sparkling beachfront, you are likely to hear languages and accents from across the world. And there’s a good reason this vibrant coastal town is home to a melting pot of cultures. Or rather, there are many, many reasons…

The glorious sunshine and beaches are the most obvious, but there is much more to Marbella than sun alone; it is the perfect place to be whoever you want to be.

The social scene is second to none, from meeting friends for a bite of tapas underneath an orange tree in the old town to getting soaked in champagne at an extravagant beach club party − and everything in between.

The town comes alive when the sun goes down, particularly in Puerto Banús – the undoubted epicentre of local nightlife – which boasts a hive of bars, restaurants and nightclubs for the international scene. The collection of super yachts moored there give an idea of just how luxurious life can be.

But Marbella still has more to offer; it is also an ideal place for families to settle and young children to grow up, thanks to a range of outstanding international schools, health facilities, outdoor sports and a safe environment.

And should the kids ever tire of Marbella’s combination of metropolitan and beach life, there are myriad adventures lying just outside the town’s borders. For instance, where else can you ski in the morning and swim in the Mediterranean in the afternoon? The slopes of the Sierra Nevada are just an hour and a half’s drive away.

Rich Andalusian culture is also on offer all around, with the breathtakingly pretty country town Ronda an hour away and countless picture-perfect pueblos within day-trip distance. The city of Málaga meanwhile has also been recently hailed as the new Barcelona – and not without good reason.

Water sports such as SCUBA diving, surfing and sailing are readily available on the coast, but the one sport that attracts perhaps more visitors to Marbella than any other is golf. Well, they don’t call it the Costa del Golf for nothing!

Clubs such as the Marbella Golf and Country club, Río Real and Las Brisas offer the very best facilities in beautiful surroundings.

With all the sporting, social, cultural and gastronomical delights you could ask for, Marbella is a town on the path to becoming the best it can be, and that is precisely why people choose to live here; to be the best they can be too.