There is a certain thrill to knowing the whole cycling world is about to look, for one afternoon, at our stretch of coast. Tomorrow the Vuelta a España comes sweeping along the seafront and climbs away into the Sierra Bermeja to a summit finish on Peñas Blancas, and I have the route, the timings and the best places to stand further down so you can pick your spot.

The rest of the week keeps pace: ABBA reborn at the theatre, a seven-act tribute night up in Manilva, a ham-cutting for a good cause, and the summer dance series taking its final bow.

One thread to pull before you read on. The mountain the race climbs on Friday is named for a colour it mostly isn't. There's a reason, and it's further down.

Here's your week ahead.

Tomorrow, Friday 11 September, the Vuelta a España rolls into town. Stage 19 runs 210 kilometres from Vélez-Málaga along the coast and finishes at the top of Peñas Blancas, the climb up into our own Sierra Bermeja. It is the antepenultimate stage of this year's race and the sort of first-category summit finish that tends to decide who wins the whole thing, which means for one afternoon the television cameras of the world will be pointed straight at our coast and our mountain.

How the day runs. The publicity caravan, the sponsors' floats that come through ahead of the race tossing out freebies, is due to reach Estepona at around 15:30, with the riders themselves following from about 16:20, before the summit finish up top at around 17:14. Traffic on the route will be restricted from 13:30 to 18:30, so if you are driving anywhere on Friday afternoon, plan around it. The council is handing out 3,000 commemorative T-shirts from midday at three points: outside the 📍Town Hall, at the top of 📍Calle Terraza by Avenida de España, and at the start of the 📍bridge leading up to the Sierra Bermeja.

Where to stand. The riders enter off the A-7, come in along Avenida Litoral and then run the length of the seafront on Avenida de España and Paseo Marítimo Pedro Manrique, before turning up through the old town (Avenida del Carmen, Puerta del Mar, the Rotonda Cibernética, Plaza San Fernando) and heading for the mountain on Avenida de Los Reales. The seafront is the easy, open place to catch them at speed. One insider tip: stand at a roundabout rather than on a straight. The riders have to brake, lean and accelerate out of it, so you get a few seconds of real movement and bunching instead of a blur going past in a straight line. The organisers are also setting up the Parque Vuelta fan zone on Avenida de España, between the children's play area and Calle Delfín, with stands and giveaways.

A warning if you were thinking of driving up the mountain. Don't. The MA-8301 up to Peñas Blancas is part of the race route itself, so it closes to traffic on Friday for the finish. If you want the summit, you need to go up under your own steam, on foot or by bike, and well ahead of the race. For everyone else, the seafront and the town are where to be.

🔗 Route and timings
🔗 Council traffic/route details

With the race owning Friday afternoon, the rest of the week arranges itself around it, and it has the feel of the summer taking its last few bows before the autumn rhythm sets in. There are big nights out and quiet creative mornings, a hillside feria winding down up in Casares and the summer dance series doing the same down here, live tributes and a good cause or two. A little of everything, in and around Estepona and Manilva. Free unless noted.

Thu 10 to Sun 13 · Feria del Cristo, 📍Casares Pueblo. Casares closes out the summer with its last feria of the season: live orchestras D'Vértigo and Latidos in the Plaza, a fairground of children's rides on La Carrera, and a Zona Joven with a themed party on Friday and urban artist Samueliyo Baby on Saturday. The most striking moment is the procession of the Santo Cristo on Saturday 12 from 21:30, winding through the streets behind the Benaoján town band. A proper village feria, up the mountain road.

Fri 11, 21:30 · Peña Flamenca de Estepona, 📍Peña Flamenca. 12€. The Friday flamenco peña's weekly night, with a fresh line-up: José Manuel Fernández on cante, José Fernández on guitar, and Sandra Cisneros and Pedro Heredia dancing. An unshowy, the-real-thing room rather than a staged show.

Sat 12, 10:00 · Jewels & Matcha Jewellery-Making Workshop, 📍Byoko Estepona. 49€. A relaxed two-hour Saturday morning making three pieces of jewellery to take home, beads and charms and a drink included, no experience needed. Booking ahead.

Sat 12, 19:00 · A Night To Remember, 📍Septimo Cielo, Manilva. 45€. Seven voices in one evening, out at a quiet spot on the Río de Manilva: Karen Carpenter, Roy Orbison, Cher, Amy Winehouse, Simply Red, Elvis and Shania Twain, tribute by tribute, with a buffet between the sets. The sort of night that carries you back a few decades and a fair way off the beaten track. By the organisers' account almost sold out, so book ahead.

Sat 12, 21:00 · Luis Piedrahita: Apocalípticamente correcto, 📍Teatro Auditorio Felipe VI. 26,40€. The comedian and TV regular brings his latest stand-up show, a fast, absurdist monologue on free will, horoscopes and everything in between. In Spanish, so one for confident Spanish-speakers.

Sat 12, 21:30 · Loco Bongo, 📍Plaza de los Maestros, Sabinillas. An interactive open-air evening built on the shape of a 1990s TV game show: music across the decades, silly on-stage challenges and a bingo-style game with prizes. Daft, sociable fun in the square.

Sun 13, 12:00 to 18:00 · I Encuentro Solidario de Cortadores de Jamón, 📍Plaza del Ajedrez. A first charity ham-cutting gathering in aid of the AECC (the Spanish cancer association) in Estepona: a plate of fine Spanish ham for 5€, with live music, dancing, raffles and a cooking show through the afternoon. Good ham, good cause.

Sun 13, 19:00 · Generation ABBA, 📍Teatro Auditorio Felipe VI. 33€. A Slovak ABBA tribute that has been touring since 1999, two hours of the hits sung live with a live band, projections and costume changes. If "Dancing Queen" at full volume is your idea of a Sunday night, this is it.

Tue 15, 21:30 · Bailes Noches de Verano, 📍El Calvario Park. The free summer dance series takes its tenth and last bow, with the "La Milana" studio directed by Gemma Sánchez: flamenco, Spanish classical, modern dance and ballet in the park. The end of a run that has run all summer, and a nice way to see it off.

Worth knowing: The town's Cursos y Talleres de Cultura 2026/27 open for enrolment this week, and there is more in there for non-Spanish-speakers than you might expect, an adult English class among them, along with drawing and painting, flamenco guitar, percussion, ballroom and Sevillanas, and bobbin lace. In-person sign-up runs 7 to 11 September, 09:30 to 13:30 at the 📍Ayuntamiento, by prior online appointment only; or by email to [email protected]. Classes run October to June.

Not everything runs to a start time. These are the things already under way that you can drop into when it suits, ordered by what closes first, so the ones near the top will not wait around much longer.

The music runs from early evening to the small hours across the week. There is flamenco guitar in a gallery room, easygoing pub nights out towards Benavista and an Irish bar putting a band on three nights running, and a couple of after-dark sessions for those who like it late. Something most nights, whatever hour you keep. Free unless noted.

Fri 11 & Sat 12, 20:00 · Daniel Casares & Julián Bedmar, 📍Huber Art & Food. 25€. Two nights of flamenco guitar in Huber's gallery room, the Estepona-born guitarist Daniel Casares alongside Julián Bedmar, in a space small enough to feel like a private session. Worth booking for the size of the room.

Fri 11, 21:00 · Electric Skies, 📍Victoria & Albert, Benavista. A live-music duo at the Victoria & Albert in Benavista, an easy, everyone-welcome Friday night out closer to home than the late Estepona sets. Doors from 21:00.

Fri 11, 21:00 · Chris Begley, 📍The 3 Monkeys. The singer-guitarist is a regular at The 3 Monkeys, back for another Friday night of live music with food and drinks alongside. Worth a reservation if you want a table.

Fri 11, 23:00 · Equinox Night Sessions, 📍Louie Louie Live. 10€. Salazar and Toni Rojas with guests, a late set to welcome the autumn in. Doors late.

Sat 12, 23:30 · El Sindicato Buena Vida, at 📍Louie Louie Live. A late Saturday set to round off the weekend at Louie Louie.

Over at the 📍Quays Irish Bar there is live music three nights running, all at 21:30. Thu 10 · Liam Waldron gets the weekend going early with an Irish session, on tonight as this lands. Fri 11 · Rocking Johnny runs through the classic singalong hits. Sat 12 · Mama Cath & The Soul Sisters close it out with a soul night made for dancing, no reservations, just grab a table.

Closing sweep: Beyond the dated sets, there is more music through the week: the Friday flamenco peña up in This Week, the live orchestras at the Feria del Cristo in Casares, and the music that comes with the Sunday ham-cutting on Plaza del Ajedrez.

The mountain the Vuelta climbs on Friday finishes at a pass called Peñas Blancas, "white rocks". Which is odd, because the whole range around it is red. It is called the Sierra Bermeja, the 'vermilion range', and red is exactly what it is: the rock it is made of, peridotite, comes from deep in the earth's mantle and weathers at the surface to a rusty, reddish brown that colours the entire massif.

So why "white rocks" in the middle of a red mountain? Right at the pass, a broad vein of much paler, harder rock cuts through the red peridotite, standing out as a cluster of white crags against the reddish-brown around them. The mountain is named for the red it mostly is, the pass for the white it isn't supposed to be. Two names, two minerals, one road.

There is one more thing worth knowing as the cameras point up there on Friday. That strange red soil is so unusual that Sierra Bermeja holds what is, by most accounts, the largest and best-exposed mass of this deep-earth rock anywhere in the world, and the only forest of Spanish fir, the Ice-Age relic pinsapo, growing on it that exists on the planet. Not a bad place to finish a bike race.

The markets that come round every week, so you always know what's on where. A couple of seasonal ones are into their final days, flagged below.

Wednesdays · Mercadillo de Estepona. The big traditional one: fruit, veg, clothes, shoes and household bits at local prices. 📍Calle Francia / Calle Alemania, 9:00 to 14:00.

Sundays · Mercadillo de Puerto. A smaller, breezier affair by the marina: summer clothes, bags, jewellery and local art, with a coffee on the terraces after. 📍Puerto Deportivo, 9:00 to 14:00.

Sundays · Mercadillo Plaza de Toros. A flea market for antiques, collectibles and bric-a-brac at the bullring. One catch: it doesn't run every Sunday, so best to check before you head over. 📍Plaza de Toros, 9:00 to 15:00.

Sundays · Mercadillo Rastro, Sabinillas. One of the coast's best-loved flea markets, with over 100 stalls: second-hand finds, antiques, vinyl and a growing row of local craft sellers. 📍Recinto Ferial de San Luis, 9:00 to 14:00.

Just the one from the neighbours this week, and it's not the usual chamber concert. Marbella is hosting a troupe of touring male dancers, so if your idea of a big night out leans more Magic Mike than mariachi, here's your tip-off.

Sat 12, 19:00 · Lap Brothers: Live Performance Show, 📍Palacio de Congresos, Marbella. From 25€. An international troupe of male dancers brings its show to Marbella, billed as a night of fantasy and spectacle aimed at a women's night out. One for a group with that in mind.

Not this week, but worth holding the date now.

Fri 18 to Sun 20 September · Costa del Sol Manga Festival, 📍Palacio de Exposiciones y Congresos de Estepona. From 3€. The manga and anime festival returns to Estepona next weekend: cosplay, gaming, workshops and stalls, a big draw for younger fans and families. Cheap entry, but if you are bringing manga-mad kids, put it in the diary now. Full billing next week.

There is less on the calendar than there was a few weeks ago, but look at the spread of it: a Grand Tour finish on our own mountain, ABBA at the theatre, a Spanish comedy night, a men's dance revue up the road, a jewellery workshop, a charity ham-cutting and a daft games-show night in a square. Quieter weeks are not thinner weeks, they just make you pick.

The one thing I would ask: if you get out to watch the race on Friday, tell me where you ended up and how it looked, since I will be out there somewhere trying to find the right spot myself. Hit reply. I read every one.

Until next week.
Stefan