Sierra Bermeja is maybe one of the most beautiful places at the Costa del Sol, because it`s left so uneffected. You will find wonderful reddish mountains of 1,450m altitude which lead to a nice little fishing-village.

The Sierra Bermeja is quite possibly one of the most underrated attractions on the Costa del Sol. The thing is, many aficionados probably prefer it to remain that way. Imagine a beautiful 1,450-meter reddish mountain overlooking a small fishing town. The limestone and red soil of the Sierra reflect the sun at different times of the year and day in ever-surprising ways. If you are up early in the morning on a clear, cold day in winter, the whole mountain lights up bright burgundy, almost orange and just beckons to be explored…

You can actually hike the mountains by trail from Estepona is a half or whole day, but you can also find yourself near the peak if you drive up in just 30 minutes, provided the meanders don’t bother you. At about 1000 meters you’ll start seeing more pine trees, including a gray-green specimen resembling a Christmas tree. This is the prehistoric pinsapo, (Spanish fir), which only survives in a few mountainous areas of Andalusia and Morocco. Apart from its grayish color, you can identify it by its needles going all the way around the stem in a spiral, in the fashion of a roll-type hairbrush. The tree was heavily logged at the beginning of the century but is now strictly protected by the Junta de Andalucía.

On the other side of the mountain are the white -casares-y-estepona,villages of Jubrique, Gaucín, Genalguacil, and Cortes de la Frontera, a station-town where you can catch the Algeciras-Málaga train as it passes through the Valle del Libar, also an important natural reserves where stone, vegetation, and water combine to from spectacular vistas. Near the railroad tracks and the Rio Guadiaro is the Cueva del Gato (Cat’s Cave), the mouth of an underground river the whole length of which is regularly explored by speleologists. You can swim in the lagoon that forms just below the opening of the cave. A few meters below, the water pours into the still-small Guadiaro. If you take the train at Cortes on your way to Granada, you’ll pass by Ronda.