Marbella Art, Architecture & Culture: the back story

About Marbella Art, Architecture & Culture: the back story

By the ULTIMATE Marbella Editorial Team

Editor-in-Chief: Jai Michael

Marbella is famous for its beaches and its port, but behind the Golden Mile is a town with two thousand years of history and a surprisingly rich art scene. Its whitewashed Old Town grew up around an orange-tree square; a Renaissance hospital now holds one of Spain's great collections of contemporary prints; and Salvador Dalí's bronzes line the walk to the sea. Here is the back story, and where to see it.

Roman and early Christian Marbella

Long before the Golden Mile, the coast here was Roman. Between the Golden Mile and Puerto Banús, the Villa Romana de Río Verde is a 2nd-century Roman villa by the sea, with some of the most original mosaics in Spain, a short and rewarding stop that most visitors drive past.

Further west, near the sea at San Pedro Alcántara, the Basílica de Vega del Mar is the ruin of an early Christian church and its cemetery, more than 1,500 years old, with a baptismal font shaped like a fish. Marbella's tourist office publishes visiting details for both sites.

In Marbella, Picasso and Miró hang in a Renaissance hospital and Dalí walks you to the beach.

The Old Town

When the Catholic Monarchs took Marbella in 1485, the town was a tight knot of Moorish lanes inside its walls. The new rulers opened up a block of streets to create a main square, and the Plaza de los Naranjos became the noble heart of the town, with the town hall, the Casa del Corregidor with its pointed Gothic arch, and several grand houses around it. Its name comes from the orange trees planted in 1941.

On a corner of the square, the Ermita de Santiago is the oldest Christian church in Marbella: a mosque consecrated after the conquest, it became a parish in 1505 and was later reduced to a hermitage, a simple building with a single rectangular nave. A short walk away, the Church of the Encarnación rises above the Old Town on the site of the old mosque, with a rococo doorway, three naves and a celebrated organ, and the surviving towers of the Moorish castle stand on Calle Trinidad.

Then simply wander. Calle Ancha runs north past restored 19th-century houses to the Santo Cristo chapel, and the Plaza del Altamirano, with its lamppost and flowering patios, is one of the prettiest corners in town. At the top of Calle Ancha, Cortijo Miraflores, a sugar mill and olive press of 1704, is now a cultural centre with an archaeology room and a garden of exotic trees.

The Museo del Grabado

In the heart of the Old Town, the former Hospital Bazán is a Renaissance building with Gothic-Mudéjar features, protected as a monument. Its restoration began in 1989, and on 28 November 1992 it opened as the Museo del Grabado Español Contemporáneo, the museum of contemporary Spanish printmaking, founded on a first donation of 1,350 prints by José Luis Morales y Marín.

Today the collection has more than 4,500 catalogued works, with prints by Picasso, Miró, Dalí, Chillida and Tàpies, and it hosts the National Printmaking Prizes. It is one of the most rewarding museums on the coast, and rarely crowded. Its 2026 programme includes the exhibition Salvador Dalí, diez recetas de inmortalidad, from 28 May to 15 November 2026, and Jorge Hernández's El instante suspendido, from 22 September to 30 November 2026.

Dalí on the Avenida del Mar

Below the Old Town, the Alameda Park was laid out in the 18th century and still keeps its original fountain under ficus trees and stone pines. The Avenida del Mar was once part of it, a place where the town's leading families paraded in their carriages on feast days; in the 1990s it took its present form as a pedestrian walkway to the sea, with fountains, pergolas and planters.

Its centrepiece is a permanent exhibition of ten bronze sculptures designed by Salvador Dalí and cast by Bonvicini in Verona, among them a seated Don Quixote and a cosmic elephant on long, spindly legs. It is Marbella's most original open-air gallery, and the perfect walk from the Old Town to the beach.

Museums beyond the Old Town

Near Puerto Banús, the Museo Ralli belongs to a small family of museums dedicated to Latin American art; its Marbella collection focuses on Latin American and European surrealism and contemporary works from the Ralli Collection, with temporary exhibitions, themed tours and workshops. Just north of the Old Town, the privately owned Museo del Bonsái in the Parque Arroyo de la Represa is best known for its wild olive trees shown on carved stone from El Torcal.

For a day out, the Centro de Arte Contemporáneo de Mijas in Mijas Pueblo has a permanent exhibition of Picasso's ceramics, which it describes as the second most important such collection in the world, and a permanent display of works by Dalí. And the Museo Picasso Málaga, in the city of the painter's birth, is a short drive along the coast.

Flamenco, theatre and music

The Teatro Ciudad de Marbella, the municipal theatre, opened in July 2001 with 480 seats and a year-round programme of theatre, music, dance, flamenco and opera, and every year it hosts the Festival Internacional de Ópera de Marbella. For flamenco, Tablao Flamenco Marbella on Plaza del Santo Cristo, at the top of Calle Ancha, has shows every day, and PiCú on Calle Muelle in Puerto Banús offers early shows before dinner on the port.

In summer, the Starlite Occident festival brings concerts to an open-air auditorium of 3,500 seats in the Cantera de Nagüeles, an old quarry in the hills above the Golden Mile.

Cultural calendar

Museo del Grabado Español Contemporáneo: Salvador Dalí, diez recetas de inmortalidad, until 15 November 2026; El instante suspendido, until 30 November 2026 (marbella.es).

Starlite Occident: the 2026 Marbella season ran from June to August at the Cantera de Nagüeles; the 2027 programme will be on starlitefestival.com.

Teatro Ciudad de Marbella: the current programme, including the Festival Internacional de Ópera de Marbella, is on marbella.es.

What's new

The Museo del Grabado Español Contemporáneo is showing Salvador Dalí, diez recetas de inmortalidad until 15 November 2026, alongside Jorge Hernández's El instante suspendido. Checked October 2026 on marbella.es.

Our advice: walk the Old Town early, before the heat and the crowds, and spend an hour in the Museo del Grabado, then follow Dalí down the Avenida del Mar for a late lunch by the sea.

Opening hours, prices and seasonal openings change, so please check with Marbella Art, Architecture & Culture: the back story before you go.