Bordering two of the Costa del Sol’s tourism heavyweights (Marbella and Estepona), Benahavís is a golf destination with its own character and many reasons for being included in a place of honour.

In fact, Benahavís now has the second highest number of golf courses of any municipality in Spain, only topped by Marbella.

Relatively small in population (just over 3,000 inhabitants, almost half of whom are foreign) but large in size (145 square kilometres), the municipality has 12 golf courses – 216 holes in total – distributed among eight clubs: Flamingos (54 holes), La Quinta (27), La Zagaleta (36), Atalaya (36, even though only a small section of this club is located in the municipality), Marbella Club (18), Monte Mayor (18, temporarily closed), Los Arqueros (18) and El Higueral (9).

In addition there is the Municipal Golf Academy, located near the town centre and connected to the four-star Gran Hotel Benahavís, with a superb practice ground including a large bunker, approach area and putting green.

Benahavís’s golf potential is immense, taking into account both its golf courses and residential-tourism complexes associated with golf and the possibility of further development in this sporting sphere.

The  quality of its courses is indisputable, with several renowned designers leaving their imprint on the municipality’s golfing amenities, including Severiano Ballesteros (Los Arqueros), Manuel Piñero (La Quinta) and Dave Thomas (Marbella Club Golf Resort).

On a sporting level, numerous major international events have been held in the municipality, amateur and professional. Since 2009, for example, La Quinta has been the venue for the Benahavís Senior Masters (part of the European Senior Tour), attracting many of the world’s leading over-50 golfers.

The same course hosted the Spanish Women’s Open (a Ladies European Tour event) last year, while the previous edition was held at Villa Padierna Golf Club. This famous resort, which includes the luxury hotel where Michelle Obama and one of her daughters holidayed in summer 2010, also hosted The Daily Telegraph Seniors  Matchplay Championship – another European Senior Tour event – from 2002 to 2004.

A stunningly beautiful mountain municipality, just seven kilometres from the coast, with an attractive town centre full of classic white houses, Benahavís is also popularly known as the “Costa del Sol Dining Room”.

Those who enjoy fine dining will discover a paradise of traditional gastronomic delights in Benahavís, with an extensive choice of restaurants and bars offering exquisite and varied cuisine found in very few other places.

Benahavís’s famous gastronomic tradition dates to the 1970s, and is based on classic cuisine predominantly using pork and game ingredients, with international dishes introduced at a later date.

The most typical dish in Benahavís is seasoned pork sirloin (solomillo de cerdo), with lamb, venison, rabbit, partridge and suckling pig popular as well.

Benahavís is also home to the renowned catering school Escuela Hispanoárabe de Dieta Mediterránea.

The golf courses’ own clubhouses offer international cuisine, while the village restaurants have seafood specialities as well as traditional Benahavís dishes – thanks to the municipality’s close proximity to the sea. In addition, visitors can savour appetising tapas in the many bars and “bodeguitos”.

The town still retains some of the characteristic white-village features of its Arabic origins, contrasting with the vibrant colours of the surrounding mountains. Interesting monuments include the Castillo de Montemayor and old 16th century palace.

The municipality’s Arabic history extends back to the protective era of the Castillo de Montemayor castle (Hins Mont Mayur) before the 10th century, when the area belonged to the Banu Habis family – the children of Abisinio, according to some, or of Habis, according to others. The name of the village derives from these origins, when it expanded under the protection of the fortress.

The municipality of Benahavís stretches across the foothills of the mountain range and is shaped by three rivers, each forming its own valley. It is one of the most mountainous areas of the Western Costa del Sol, with a richly diverse landscape and some truly admirable places to visit.

 

White Village

It is an interior location but due to its proximity to the coast, it has of necessity been a participant in the development that has occurred there. While the village centre preserves all the character of the White Villages, large housing developments have sprung up in its environs, especially to the south, along with magnificent golf courses. It is an important detail, however, that 70 percent of the surface area of this municipality has been declared an \"Environmentally Significant Mountain Complex\", a designation that protects all that territory from development excesses.

The rivers Guadaiza, Guadalmina and Guadalmedina meander through large expanses of forest in which pines, live oaks and cork oaks predominate. The valleys of these rivers have historically been used as routes into the Ronda highlands. There is no doubt they were so used from the time of the Phoenicians until that of the Arabs as there is proof of this in different places not far from the village. These lands were therefore of significant strategic value since very ancient times.

The first nucleus of a village, however, was formed in Arab times. It seems to have been founded in the late eleventh century and in the shadow of the Montemayor castle. This fortress witnessed the entire history of the village, from the clashes among the Muslims themselves until their confrontations with the Christians, and much later it was also a scene of the struggle between the Spanish and French during the Napoleonic invasion in the early nineteenth century.

The castle and the village passed into the hands of the Christians when, in 1485, the Catholic Monarchs took Marbella and its surroundings, which included Benahavís and the village of Daidín. This entire territory was granted to the Count of Cifuentes in 1492 in payment for the services he had rendered to the crown of Castile. It would not be until 1572 that, with the approval of Felipe II, Benahavís became independent of Marbella.

 

 

 

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