Guide to Calahonda

You either love it or hate it. They call Calahonda Little England and that’s exactly what it is – except for the fact that no housing complex in England can boast year-round sun combined with every conceivable sports and leisure facility right on the doorstep.

Yes, there are some Germans, Scandinavians and Dutch scattered around but there’s an overall British feel to the place and that’s just what its residents and visitors want.

There are British doctors, dentists, bars, restaurants and hair dressers all designed to make this much sought after complex on the Costa del Sol a home from home for Brits who choose to holiday, buy a second home or retire abroad. When it comes to doing England in the sun, nowhere does it better than Sitio Calahonda – the name of the vast urbanisation which has become a town in its own right since its foundation in 1963. Over the years it has won numerous awards including the Barclays Bank “best developer on the Costa del Sol” title.

It’s a vast sunshine playground of luxury villas, apartment blocks and holiday complexes spreading 600,000 square metres from the coast back into the hillsides which offer panoramic views of the Mediterranean and the Atlas Mountains of North Africa.

The urbanisation is served by 28 kilometres of roads, several banks, three 24-hour medical centres, three shopping centres and a fibre optic telephone network. There’s a children’s nursery school, language school, riding club, tennis courts, post office, 24 hour security patrols, two chemists and a tourist train linking all sections of the urbanisation.

It’s all a far cry from the early 1960s when an entrepreneurial industrial engineer called Jose Orbaneja decided to cash in on the imminent property boom by buying up land to urbanise on the Costa de Sol.

Marbella was already an up and coming resort for the world’s rich and famous so the coastal strip to the east was the ideal place to start building a state-of-the-art holiday town to accommodate the mass invasion of foreigners which was about to swamp Spain’s southern coastline. Orbaneja bought a large swathe of farmland, owned by the Val Dulken family, and set about transforming it into one of the biggest and best foreign urbanisations in Spain.

Street names such as Calle Don Jose de Orbaneja and Calle Dulken are reminders in 21st century Sitio Calahonda of where it all began. Water and electricity supplies proved major headaches in the early years and when the local wells failed to keep pace with construction work, water wagons had to be brought in to supply the burgeoning number of properties in the summer months.

These days Sitio Calahonda has all the infrastructure it needs, including 30 electricity transformers, to support a population which peaks at 45,000 in high season.

The place is a golfers’ paradise with a nine-hole course within the urbanisation and several more either under construction or planned. There’s a wealth of world class courses to choose from within easy driving distance of the complex including the exclusive Marbella Golf and Country Club, Miraflores and Mijas Golf.

Sitio Calahonda even has its own marina – picturesque Puerto Cabopino which has 170 berths for small to medium size boats along with a wide choice of water sports and excursions including dolphin watching trips. The harbour is dotted with bars and international restaurants which provide a popular meeting place and an ideal venue for sipping a sun downer and people watching on summer evenings.

Puerto Cabopino has some superb, sandy beaches and if you head west you can walk along the beach all the way to Marbella.

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