Most castles in Spain were built to defend something. Colomares Castle was built to argue a case, and it went up in 1987 on a plot outside Benalmádena. Its author was not an architect but a doctor, working with two bricklayers for seven years, and the ticket to see the result costs €3.50.
Can you go inside Colomares Castle? No. The ticket page states that the monument is visited from the outside only, and tickets are sold at the gate for €3.50, or €2.50 for children and pensioners. A doctor, Esteban Martín Martín, began the work in 1987 with two bricklayers and took seven years over it. It closes every Monday.
Admission to the Castillo Monumento Colomares is €3.50 for adults and €2.50 for children and pensioners, falling to €2.00 a head for groups of 25 or more. The sentence that comes with it matters more than the figure: tickets are sold only at the gate, so the drive is made without a booking in hand, and the site shuts every Monday.
The price, and the sentence that comes with it
Admission to the Castillo Monumento Colomares is €3.50 for adults and €2.50 for children and pensioners, falling to €2.00 a head for groups of 25 or more.
Tickets are sold at the gate, and the site is explicit that buying ahead is not required, which on this coast is unusual enough to be worth stating. Two things do need a phone call first:
- Group visits, which drop to €2.00 a head from 25 people and are arranged in advance.
- Photo shoots, which the monument asks to be agreed by telephone before turning up.
- Guided talks, offered to pre-arranged groups in several languages.
The €3.50 ticket buys an exterior visit
Alongside those figures sits a line worth reading before driving up: the monument is visited from the outside only. The same website also advertises a Columbus facsimile museum, and this article does not resolve that tension: both statements are published by the same house, and the one attached to the price is the exterior visit.
In practice that makes the visit short and cheap rather than a half-day, and it explains the €2.00 group rate: what is being sold is a walk around a building, not a museum circuit with rooms to time.
Where each caravel sits
The building spreads the symbols of the 1492 voyage across its own structure, so knowing where to look changes the visit.
| Element | Where it is | What it stands for |
|---|---|---|
| La Niña | At the highest point, under the arch of La Rábida | The monastery that sheltered Columbus |
| La Pinta | On the main façade, carried by a Pegasus | The Pinzón brothers’ ship |
| La Santa María | Set apart from the other two | The flagship |
| Bronze horse’s head | Within the complex | A tribute to Martín Alonso Pinzón |
| Bronze coats of arms | Within the complex | The crown of Castile and Queen Isabella |
| Oratory with a ship’s bell | Inside the grounds | The island christened San Salvador |
That is an unusual inventory for a privately built monument, and it explains why a small site takes longer to walk than its size suggests.
Four timetables and one constant
The constant is that it closes every Monday, all year. Everything else moves with the season.
- Summer: Tuesday to Sunday, 10am to 2pm and 5pm to 9pm, written 10-14 and 17-21 on the local clock
- Spring: 10am to 8pm, a single 10-20 stretch
- Autumn: 10am to 6pm, or 10-18
- Winter: the same 10-18
The summer split is the one that wrecks plans, because it closes for three hours in the middle of the afternoon, exactly when people come up from the beach.
The construction story comes from the monument’s own pages. In 1987 Dr Esteban Martín Martín began the work improvising as he went, and with the help of two bricklayers raised Colomares over seven years of craft building in brick, stone and cement.
The house calls the result a unicum, for the way it narrates the discovery of America in stone. That is the difference from a historic castle: this is not a fortress but an argument, built at full scale by someone who was not an architect.
It also sets the tone of the visit. There is no fixed route, no ticket queue and no interior circuit; the building is read from outside like a page, and the €3.50 is closer to a donation than to an admission fee by Costa del Sol standards.
Getting there from Malaga
The monument stands at Finca La Carraca, on the Costa del Sol road in Benalmádena, a municipality the train serves through Benalmádena-Arroyo de la Miel on the C-1 line, the same station used for the Benalmádena cable car. Pairing the two makes a full day out of two short visits, one at €3.50 and one from €17.90, without hiring a car for either.
At €3.50 it is among the cheapest tickets in the province, far below the family plans on the same coast such as Bioparc Fuengirola, and it fits the price ladder set out in what a trip to Malaga costs.
The line itself is covered in Malaga’s cercanías trains, and the rest of the province in day trips from Malaga.
Frequently asked questions about Colomares Castle
When was Colomares Castle built, and by whom?
A doctor. Esteban Martín Martín began the work in 1987, improvising as he went, with two bricklayers helping him. It took seven years of craft work in brick, stone and cement, according to the monument’s own website.
Can you go inside Colomares Castle?
The ticket page states that the monument is visited from the outside only. The same website also advertises a Columbus facsimile museum, so it is worth asking at the gate what is open on the day you go.
How much does Colomares Castle cost?
Three euros fifty for adults and two fifty for children and pensioners, dropping to two euros a head for groups of 25 or more. Tickets are bought at the gate, and the site says buying in advance is not required.
Is Colomares Castle worth visiting?
It works as a short, cheap stop rather than a half-day. At €3.50 with an exterior-only visit, it suits anyone already in Benalmádena for the cable car or the beach, and anyone curious about a full-scale monument built by one man in seven years.
When is Colomares Castle open?
Tuesday to Sunday, closed every Monday of the year. Hours change by season: 10am to 2pm and 5pm to 9pm in summer, 10am to 8pm in spring and 10am to 6pm in autumn and winter.
A castle that never defended anything, telling a voyage in brick. Three euros fifty, and you look at it from outside.