Rich and famous

Don’t judge me, but we went searching for the rich and famous this afternoon. A Mick Jagger burger on the menu at our hotel isn’t enough. Jagger almost lived in the Mijas hotel we are staying at in the 1980’s.

From Mijas we taxied to Puerto Banús, which I hadn’t been to for 40 odd years. It was old money then, and now it was very much new money.

The short stretch of Calle Muelle de Ribera running alongside the harbour still dripped of large yachts, lottery winners’ cars, botox and a lot of Uncles out with their nieces.

Beyond that small corner the store fronts quickly went from Versace to Burger King, the people looked miserable and even the type of car changed.

We didn’t hang around and took the catamaran ferry to Marbella, another place I had not visited for probably four decades.

Marbella has had a new lease of life. Rafa Nadal has a tennis centre here, fashion houses and cool brands are opening hotels tucked away in the hills beyond the city, Dubai and American money has arrived and Marbella is trying to reinvent itself as a tech hub.

As we pulled into Marbella’s ferry terminal the beach front looked sad and rusty. Off white hotels jostled with each other in front of greyish sandy beaches.

However, I was really pleased to see that the Old Town in Marbella retained plenty of charm. Shielded by Bougainvillea and Wisteria from the outside, the old town is a labyrinth of narrow streets and eclectic shops.

Pretty streets with whitewashed walls and blue flowerpots bursting from them were busy with families. The smell of orange blossom hung in the air.

We stopped for a jug of white sangria in the Orange Square and was happy we made the outing.