Something small but new this week: for the first time, this letter has a sponsor, a local business I'm glad to have here. One thing I want to be straight about, though. Nobody can buy their way into what I recommend. The picks stay what I'd pass to a friend, paid or not, and the paid part will always say "Sponsored" in plain sight. That a business wants to reach you means the letter is working, and that's down to you reading and sharing it. Thank you for that.

We're properly into autumn now, and on this coast that's the good season: the heat has eased, the crowds have thinned, and the days are still warm enough for the sea. Into that easy stretch lands a weekend where the Palacio fills up with cosplayers and dragons, so gentle and loud, side by side.

There's also a birthday buried in the calendar this week that Estepona has been celebrating, on and off, for nearly three hundred years. More on who signed what, and why it mattered so much to stop being someone else's suburb, further down.

Here's everything worth doing.

The Costa del Sol Manga Festival lands for its fourth edition, and it takes over the whole 📍Palacio de Exposiciones y Congresos from Friday to Sunday. This is the one we flagged a fortnight ago, and it has grown into a proper three-day affair: cosplay, gaming tournaments, K-pop contests, exhibitions, and a hall of specialist traders and artists, all built around Asian pop culture. Organised by the non-profit Pax Cultural.

It skews younger and family-friendly, but the cosplay crowd spans every age, and the costume incentive is real: turn up in costume and Friday is free (otherwise 3€), while Saturday and Sunday drop from 5€ to 3€ if you come dressed for it.

Friday 16:00 to 21:00, Saturday and Sunday 10:00 to 21:00.

This is the kind of week that makes the town feel a little unclassifiable. One night you're heckling a comic in English, the next you're ringside at a Muay Thai gala, and somewhere in between there's poetry, a fashion catwalk taking shape and a quiz raising money for a good cause. No single mood to it, which is rather the point. Free unless noted.

Thu 17, 19:00 · AREME Quiz Night, 📍Bar Vice Versa. 3€. The quiz regulars are back, and this year every euro raised goes to the Parkinson's Association of Estepona and Collective Calling. Bring a team, or bring your competitive streak and find one on the night.

Fri 18, 18:00 · Elementales formas de silencio, 📍Casa de las Tejerinas. Málaga poet and journalist Juan Gaitán presents his new collection, an exercise in paring the poem back until almost nothing is left but the essential. Free entry until the room fills.

Fri 18, 21:30 · Flamenco Night at Mi Caseta, 📍Recinto Ferial. From 45€. A staged 90-minute flamenco evening at the fairground: song, guitar and dance, with a half-bottle of Manzanilla included and a dinner option on top if you want to make a meal of it. Billed as a small, intimate room, and it runs on Fridays through September, so it's the feria atmosphere on a fixed date rather than a spontaneous bar set.

Sat 19, 16:00 · Golden Boy Muay Thai, 📍Parque del Calvario. The fifteenth Golden Series gala brings clubs from across Andalucía to the open-air park, amateur and junior bouts first, then the main Golden Boy card. Backed by the Andalusian and Spanish federations.

Wed 23, 21:30 · Stand-Up Comedy in English, 📍Louie Louie Live. 18€. A fresh bill of touring comics headed up by Scottish circuit favourite Jeannie Jones and So You Think You're Funny winner Alan Francis, with much-travelled MC Nik Coppin keeping the night moving.

Wed 23 to Sat 26 · 10th Estepona Fashion Week, 📍Orchidarium. The tenth Semana de la Moda opens on Wednesday and runs into next week, with the young-designer catwalk final on the 26th. It gets under way this week; we'll point you at the finale nearer the time.

Three shows reach their final days inside this coverage week, so if any have been on your list, this is the week to catch them. And right now all three rooms of the Casa de las Tejerinas are hung at once, so one visit there gets you two of them plus a brand-new opening.

This is a week that can't decide what mood it's in, and that's the fun of it. Stadium anthems and gypsy-jazz swing, a Tarifa party band and a tribute to Sweden's finest, spread across the bars of Sabinillas, an art-and-food room in town and a pub out in Benavista. Whatever Friday or Saturday night you're after, there's a version of it playing somewhere. Free unless noted.

Fri 18, 20:00 · The Stolen Gnomes, 📍Huber Art & Food. 20€. Irish and Celtic fusion folded into soul, blues and roots, in Huber's small, low-lit room where the band plays close enough to read the setlist over their shoulder. Worth booking ahead.

Fri 18, 21:30 · Zac & Bruno: The Hit Show, 📍The Quays Irish Bar. Two voices and a run of familiar hits to open the weekend in Sabinillas.

Fri 18, 23:30 · Up to Eleven, 📍Louie Louie Live. A covers set that reads like a festival wishlist, Metallica, Green Day, Oasis, Radiohead, Black Sabbath, Nirvana, Blur, R.E.M., turned up loud and running late. The one for anyone who misses their guitar heroes.

Sat 19, 18:30 · Lucy Indrisie, 📍The Victoria and Albert. A Saturday-night set out in Benavista.

Sat 19, 19:00 · Party in the Square: Rocking Johnny, 📍Puerto de la Duquesa. An early-evening set from Rocking Johnny in the square at Duquesa port, a Fiesta del Sol fundraiser for Fundación APRONA, so the music comes with a good cause attached.

Sat 19, 20:00 · The Corkery Hot Club, 📍Huber Art & Food. 20€. Gypsy jazz, the swing style Django Reinhardt made famous, in Huber's small room. An easy, elegant Saturday night, worth booking ahead.

Sat 19, 20:00 · Malamanera, 📍MariMorena. Party covers brought up from Tarifa, made for singing along and not sitting still.

Sat 19, 20:00 · BBQ Night with Michelle Daniels as Cher, 📍Roman Oasis. 25€. A Cher tribute over a barbecue out at Roman Oasis in Manilva, dinner and a show rolled into one.

Sat 19, 21:30 · Roy Leslie, 📍The Quays Irish Bar. Roy Leslie makes his Quays debut, a second Saturday night of music by the water in Sabinillas.

Sun 20, 21:00 · Voulez Vous: Best of ABBA, 📍The Quays Irish Bar. Every hit you're already humming, sing-alongs guaranteed. Pull up a chair, order dinner and a drink, then dance the Sunday away.

Here's the birthday from up top. For most of its history, Estepona wasn't really its own town, it answered to Marbella. That changed on 21 April 1729, when Felipe V signed the Carta de Villazgo, the charter that finally granted Estepona independent town status. The original document is still kept in the municipal archive nearly three centuries later.

So the next time anyone tries to lump Estepona in with its glossier neighbour, you can point to a nearly-300-year-old royal signature that says otherwise. We do like that around here.

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.

A look up the coast, where Marbella closes out the summer in two very different ways.

Thu 17 September, from 20:00 · Moraga Popular, 📍Playa de la Venus, Marbella (and three other beaches). Marbella's town hall throws its end-of-summer beach party on Thursday evening, and it's a big, free, unfussy one. Sardines grilled on open wood fires the traditional way, chopped-tomato salad, bread and a drink handed out across four beaches at once, from Playa de la Venus to San Pedro's 📍Playa de la Salida, Las Chapas and Puerto Banús, each with local bands playing. Running since 2010 as a thank-you to the summer crowds, it's the fishing quarter's way of seeing the season off. Turn up hungry.

Sat 19 September, 12:00 · Open Nacional Fivestars, 📍Palacio de Congresos Adolfo Suárez, Marbella. A national bodybuilding open, the qualifier that opens the competitive season on the road to the championships. One for anyone who follows the sport, or is curious what months of preparation look like under stage lights.

One to put in the diary now, because the decision comes sooner than the event does.

San Diego Comic-Con Málaga · Thu 1 to Sun 4 October · 📍FYCMA, Málaga. The only official San Diego Comic-Con outside the United States runs its second edition up the coast in Málaga, and it is enormous: four days, more than 300 hours of programming, and last year's edition drew over 95,000 people. This year's guest list reaches from The Lord of the Rings (Elijah Wood and Sean Astin) to Marvel's Paul Bettany, The Boys (Karl Urban and Aya Cash) and One Piece, alongside comics, anime, gaming, cosplay and family activities across the halls. Almost certainly one for the younger fans in the house, and plenty of the grown-up ones too.

The reason it's on the radar this week and not just noted later: panel seat reservations open on Friday 25 September, and you'll need a ticket linked to a Fan Portal profile to book. So if any of those names made you sit up, this is the week to sort tickets and set that reminder. Full run-down, and how we'd spend four days there, next week.

That's the week, dragons and last-chance canvases and all. Whatever you get to, enjoy it, and if you spot something I've missed, hit reply and tell me. I read every one.

Until next week.
Stefan