Spotting in Marbella, worth it?
Every year we take a week or two off to go on a holiday. Last 2 years we went to different places in the Côte d’Azur (but wherever we go, we try to take the Ram instead of the plane). And, of course, I’ve had some time to go spotting in Monaco and Cannes.
This year though our friends offered us a place to stay in Marbella, 5 minutes from Puerto Banús, the center of all supercars. So 2.000 kms in our Ram, it’s a 2 day trip but a comfortable way of getting there.
Marbella is known to attract the rich, with large and hot (seriously way too hot for me) beaches, exclusive clubs and the yacht harbor called Puerto Banùs, this is where you’ll find some of the most exclusive cars in the world.
But it’s not to be compared to London or Monaco, not at all. First of all the location is quite tricky, it’s probably more crowded than London because of the small area, people walk through your picture, lean on the cars,.. I’ve almost went mad at how irrespecutful people are to these expensive cars.
Eventually when I waited long enough with my 50mm prime lens across the street I was able to catch some nice booties (of cars that is) but to get to the front it was useless because of the tight space. This is were my Tokina 11-16mm came to the rescue and this was my golden combination for the area.
The cars itself, Puerto Banùs only allows the cars inside from a select public who have a key card to enter, forcing other people to look elsewhere for parking. So you’ll get to see some amazingly exclusive cars but at the same time not in great amounts at the same time. As I figured this out I went a bit earlier to the harbor (around 17:00 before the best cars come out and play) and then going to the the roundabout with the only entrance and wait for good stuff to come.
Marbella’s been a pleasant experience but would I want to go back? Not really no. Sure there are many very exclusive cars but you’ll have to be lucky to see them and after a few days you’ve seen everything except the rarest of the breed. There’s almost no place round the cars to get some shots and temperatures only go below 35 °C after 9 o’clock in the evening.
Marbella was definitely worth the visit but if you ask me, there’s still one that combines everything the best: Monaco.
