La Fonda Heritage Hotel

Style

Colonnades and courtyards

Setting

Old town Marbella

It’s not just La Fonda Heritage Hotel’s showstopping original features – all stately pillars, soaring stone archways and ancient frescoes – that give this breathtaking boutique bolthole the wow-factor. Try not to let your jaw drop when you first glimpse your ultra-luxe bedroom, with its beguiling views of the cute limewashed church on the square, or across Marbella’s red-tiled rooftops; some rooms and suites even have expansive terraces shaded by the branches of centuries-old trees. And, if the restaurant’s glorious setting inside a rediscovered 16th-century hermitage fails to render you speechless, the food – grilled sardines from the Calabrian Sea, tender Iberian pork, and cured manchego-cheese ice-cream – surely will.

Facilities

Habitaciones

20, of which three are suites.

Checkout

Noon. Check-in is at 3pm. Both are flexible when availability allows.

Más detalles

Buffet breakfast is available for €35 and is served between 8am and 11am in the Los Patios de la Fonda restaurant.

Also

The hotel has one wheelchair-accessible room – although Marbella’s old-town cobbles may prove more of a challenge…

Acceso gratis a internet

Lavandería

Aceptamos mascotas

Restaurante en el hotel

Servicio de habitaciones

At the Hotel

Free WiFi. In rooms: Loewe smart-screen TV, Marshall Bluetooth speaker, Illy coffee machine, Alessi kettle with a variety of teas, Dyson hairdryer, minibar, free bottled water, organic Meraki bath products.

Our Favourite Rooms

No two rooms at La Fonda Heritage Hotel are the same, making it all the more difficult to play favourites. Accessing yours via a covered passageway overlooking inner courtyards, you might open the door to find glass walls, white wood-beamed ceilings or vast floor-to-ceiling windows framing widescreen views of old Marbella’s palm-lined streets and red-tiled rooftops. If it’s the hotel’s most storied stay you’re after though, opt for the sainted Heritage Suite: as well as being one of the hotel’s most spacious rooms, it’s also home to restored 18th-century frescoes adorning its vaulted ceiling.

Packing Tips

Bring binoculars for ogling La Concha and the Marbella skyline over sangria slushies at the hotel’s Sky Bar, dark glasses and a decoy paperback for surreptitious people-watching along the exclusive Golden Mile.

Also

The hotel’s €7.5m restoration project revealed lost architectural features including the altar and nave from one of the building’s previous incarnations as a 16th-century hermitage, which now forms part of the atmospheric Jane Restaurant.

Niños

Extra beds can be provided in suites for an additional fee, up to a maximum of three guests.

Gallery

Food & Drink

Top Table

Bag a table among the hallowed walls of Jane Restaurant’s rediscovered 16th-century hermitage, where the Andalusian flavours and sommelier-recommended wines might just take you to a higher spiritual plain.

Código de vestimenta

Go maximum Marbella in designer togs, branded beachwear and catwalk-worthy dancing shoes. Wear ‘last season’ at your peril….

Hotel Restaurant

La Fonda has three. Los Patios de la Fonda occupies – as the name suggests – a lovely patio, with whitewashed walls, bold floral cushions and all manner of tropical planting. This is the place for buffet breakfasts and lazy brunches that are served till mid afternoon.

Take your pick from prime spots in any one of Jane Restaurant’s three distinct zones: the cocktail lounge with its plush banquette seating and velvet drapes, the plant-filled garden patio or – best of all – the glass-roofed 16th-century chapel, where zig-zag floor tiles contrast honey-coloured stone walls that bear the ghostly imprints of ancient arched windows. Dinner is equally extraordinary, boasting a menu of inventive Andalusian-Mediterranean dishes with an international twist. Try the lamb and foie-gras sausage with date and olive tapenade or Jerusalem artichoke wonton with cockle broth and oyster emulsion.

The Sky Bar is your summer-only option for small plates to go with your cocktails, accompanied by balmy sea breezes and far-reaching views over the old town to the coast beyond.

Hotel Bar

The signature cocktails in Jane’s sultry lounge area pack something of a punch but don’t worry, that tree growing up through the middle of the room is no figment of your Aperol-addled imagination. Recline on sumptuous banquettes or head out to the garden patio, where a live DJ soundtracks long summer evenings. Upstairs at the Sky Bar, you can pair old town views and widescreen seascapes with ice-cold bubbles from the champagne bar. Both Jane and the Sky Bar stay open past midnight.

Last Orders

The bars keep the cocktails flowing until half past midnight.

Room Service

A dedicated room service menu is available for most of the day while the kitchen is open, but not through the night.

Planes

Malaga Airport is 30 miles and around 40 minutes from the hotel. Transfers can be arranged for around €150 each way.

Trains

Málaga María Zambrano is the nearest station with connections from Barcelona: the hotel can arrange transfers from €75 each way.

Automobiles

A car gives you the freedom to fill your boots with as many Costa del Sol beaches and whitewashed hill towns as your heart desires – heck, you could even tick a few off on the short drive along the AP-7 from Malaga Airport to Marbella old town. There are plentiful rental options at the airport and secure underground parking with a shuttle service pick-up for hotel guests 200 metres from La Fonda.

Worth Getting Out of Bed For

You don’t need to amble far from La Fonda’s tranquilo courtyards to get a flavour of Marbella’s mediaeval old-town magic. Palm-flanked Santo Cristo de la Vera Cruz is among the city’s oldest and most photogenic churches, and sits just across the plaza from La Fonda Heritage Hotel, its whitewashed lime stucco façade as eye-catching as the blue and white ceramic tiles that cap its square belltower. Wander the bougainvillaea-scented maze of streets to tiny squares where tourists devour churros y chocolate beneath orange trees and cats stretch out on the warm cobbles. The Iglesia de la Encarnación is another holy highlight of the old town, with its impressive rococo door, lofty belltower and bling-tastic gold-leaf altar.

If La Fonda’s plant-filled corridors and courtyards have you hankering for more of the green stuff, head just south of the old town for the frenzy of tropical foliage that is Alameda Park: park yourself on one of the azulejo-clad stone benches to watch the world go by, and don’t miss the evening light show at the ornate central fountain.

Art lovers and beach bums alike should continue south towards sandy Playa de Venus, making sure to take in the 10 Salvador Dalí sculptures along Avenida del Mar en route. And no, you’re not suffering from acute sunstroke; these huge hallucinatory bronze statues really do depict fantastical feats such as Perseus holding Medusa’s decapitated head aloft and a man surfing on a dolphin.

The stretch of coastline that runs west from popular Playa de Venus to hard-partying Puerto Banús is known as the Golden Mile for its ostentatious displays of wealth. Expect jet-set fashions, gleaming sports cars and liner-like superyachts. Bring yourself back to (sur)reality with a bump by seeking out Dalí’s 3.6-tonne Rhinoceros Dressed in Lace lurking coquettishly on a roundabout at the resort’s eastern end. Or escape the madness altogether on a road trip to Playa de Cala Sardina, a remote sandy cove backed by tumbledown whitewashed hilltop houses, about 45 minutes south of central Marbella.

Earn or Redeem Points with World of Hyatt

This Mr & Mrs Smith hotel participates in the World of Hyatt loyalty program. As a member, you can earn and redeem points and enjoy exclusive benefits for qualifying nights. .