When you think of Marbella you automatically picture luxurious sea fronting apartments and grand seaside villas, or perhaps exclusive residential areas lining the green expanses of a golf course, but there is another setting that is also popular and every bit as glamorous.
Though originating in the USA, the country club environment has come to suit Marbella very well, where it is represented by exclusive gated communities straddling wooded hillsides that boast magnificent views of the surroundings all the way down to the sea. The appeal is clear; you can be close to everything – in many cases just a few minutes to Marbella or Puerto Banús – yet enjoy the fresh air, open spaces, panoramic views and beautiful natural surroundings of a hillside location.
In most residential areas of this kind you will predominantly find stylish villas set on large plots of land, though some offer a selection of apartments and townhouses as well. La Mairena, up in the foothills of the Sierra Bermeja, is such an area, with a fine choice of rustic and modern properties set amid pine groves and cork forest, overlooking open countryside on the north and across Elviria and Los Monteros towards the Mediterranean Sea on the south.
Originally developed from the late 1980s onwards, La Mairena has always had a strong sense of community – like an exclusive little village tucked into the hills just northeast of Marbella. The coast, with its beaches, shops, schools and golf courses is just a few minutes away, but in La Mairena you enjoy peace, privacy and a country setting on the edge of Marbella.
A small meeting point of shops, two restaurants and a sports centre with tennis courts provide an everyday nucleus for residents, while German-speaking student
s can stroll down to the excellent German School, which attracts pupils from across the region. The verdant nature of the urbanization here is such that individual villas and small complexes of apartments and townhouses are dotted amid the greenery, connected by peaceful residential streets and overlooking wonderful hillside tracts of forest that rise inland to meet the tall mountain ranges of the interior.
On a clear day you can see as far as Gibraltar in the west and the mighty Sierra Nevada Mountains in the east, but as La Mairena lies within the UNESCO Biosphere Reserve of the Sierra de las Nieves it is also a delight for hikers, cyclists and horse riders, not to mention lovers of nature. Eagles, vultures, badgers, wild boar, deer, squirrels and a variety of other species are among the wildlife that can be spotted here, especially in the open countryside between La Mairena and the little mountain town of Ojén, which lies a little further to the north-west of it.
For a combination of genteel living with the glamour and facilities of Marbella on the one hand, and the tranquillity and beauty of nature on the other, La Mairena makes it possible to live the country life on the edge of a luxurious resort town.