Romantic Things to Do on the Costa del Sol

The Costa del Sol has a reputation for stag weekends and full English breakfasts. It also has, within an hour's drive, some of the most romantic places in Spain — clifftop towns, a gorge with a bridge across it, balloon flights at first light and villages where nothing has changed in two hundred years.

We fly couples every week, and a fair number of them propose while they're up there. This is what actually works.

Up in the air

A sunrise balloon flight

If you want the single most romantic thing available in this part of Spain, this is it. You meet in the dark, watch the envelope inflate in the half-light, and lift off as the sun comes over the sierra. An hour of near-silence — balloons drift with the wind, so there's no noise except the burner — followed by breakfast and cava at the landing site.

• Over Ronda (€225) — the gorge and the Puente Nuevo from above, with the town waking up.
• Over Arcos de la Frontera (€225) — a cliff-edge white town beside a reservoir. Possibly the prettiest launch site we have.
• Over Guadix (€200) — cave houses and the Sierra Nevada beyond, in Granada province.

Be realistic about the alarm clock: balloons fly at dawn because that's when the air is calm, so in summer that means a 5am start. Nobody has ever complained afterwards.

A paramotor flight over Ronda at golden hour

Cheaper, shorter and more of a thrill: a tandem paramotor flight takes off from a field near Ronda and flies directly over the Puente Nuevo and the Tajo gorge. Fifteen minutes is €100, thirty is €130, forty is €145. It flies two people one after the other rather than together — which, as it happens, is why it works so well for a surprise. More on that below.

A tandem paragliding flight

Quieter than the paramotor and cheaper than the balloon: €100 for thirty minutes of gliding over the mountains, with no engine. If there are two of you and two pilots are free that day, you can often launch together and fly side by side — ask us when you book and we'll try to arrange it.

On the ground

Ronda at dusk

The coaches leave around 5pm and the town changes completely. Walk out to the Puente Nuevo when the light goes orange, then along the clifftop paseo with the whole valley below. It costs nothing and it is better than most things that cost money.

Setenil de las Bodegas, early

Arrive before ten and you get the rock-cut streets to yourselves. Coffee under a hundred tonnes of overhanging cliff is a strange and lovely way to start a day.

Zahara de la Sierra

A white village on a spur above a turquoise reservoir, with a Moorish tower above it. The twenty-minute climb to the castle is the best-value view in the province.

The Balcón de Europa, Nerja

A palm-lined promontory sticking out into the Mediterranean, with the Sierra Almijara behind. Touristy, and still genuinely lovely at sunset.

Maro's coves

Just east of Nerja, a protected stretch of cliffs and small beaches reachable by path or kayak. The most dramatic coastline in the province, and nothing like the wide flat beaches further west.

An Arab bath house

Hot, warm and cold pools, low light, ninety minutes. There are hammams in Málaga and Marbella. The right answer for an anniversary, and the best possible use of a rainy afternoon.

A wine tasting in the Serranía

Ronda has a small, serious wine region — around twenty bodegas in the hills around the town, most of them tiny. Several take visits by appointment. It's a much better afternoon than a coach tour to a commercial winery.

If you're planning a proposal

We get asked to help with this often enough that it's worth writing down what we've learned.

1. Tell us in advance. Put it in the notes when you book, or message us. We'll plan around it — the pilot will know, the timing will be right, and nobody will accidentally ruin it.
2. Decide who flies. With a paramotor, one passenger flies at a time. The classic version: they fly first, land, and you're waiting with the ring. It's much easier to manage than trying to do it in the air.
3. In a balloon, do it at the top. Balloon baskets hold several people, so it's public — but at 800 metres over Ronda with the sun coming up, that turns out to be a feature. The other passengers become an audience, and there's cava on the ground afterwards.
4. Pay for the photos and video. €20 for the HD package, €35 for 360°. People who skip this and then propose regret it more than any other decision on this list.
5. Don't put it on the last day. Weather moves flights. Build in a spare day so a front doesn't cost you the moment.
6. Keep the ring with us, not in your pocket. Hand it to the pilot before the flight. Harnesses, wind and small boxes are a bad combination, and we've seen the panic.

Two weekends, planned

What to avoid

• The seafront restaurants with photo menus. Walk three streets inland, anywhere on this coast.
• Ronda between 11am and 4pm in July. It's a coach park with a view. Go early or late.
• Over-planning. Two fixed things a day is plenty. The best afternoons here are the unplanned ones.