Breathing Space

For a writer emerging from a challenging phase of life, a trip to Marbella provides romantic reconnection and treasured family time.

- By MINA HOLLAND

My grandfather used to say: "There's no such thing as fun for all the family.

" But sitting on this beach, underneath an impossibly blue sky, beside an even bluer, crystalline sea, I found myself suspecting he was wrong. My husband and our children were playing in the gentle waves, occasionally stopping to look at shells. Beside them, a jetty with an arched entrance read 'Marbella Club' in wooden capital letters, unchanged since the resort, once the Andalusian residence of Prince Alfonso von Hohenlohe, opened here on the Costa del Sol in 1954.

We had chosen to come to Marbella hoping to challenge my grandfather's maxim, so that we could all have our respective ideas of fun: Water, play, and exploration for our five-and-three-year-olds, and some much-needed rest for my husband and me after a gruelling time. Eighteen months before, our daughter had received a bone-marrow transplant, a major medical procedure that had kept us housebound in isolation for over a year—so a good holiday was overdue.

At Marbella Club's reception, we had been greeted with warm welcomes and cold cava—exactly what the doctor ordered after even a short flight with small children. It is a gorgeous, tiled space with magnificent floral displays, and my children fizzed around it, wanting to touch everything. None of the staff batted an eyelid, instead chatting to them about all the things they could do during their stay here. I felt the distinct calm of a mother who knows she's in a child-friendly space—plenty of things may be precious, but the people are not. A buggy transported us down a wide boulevard to our lodgings, a spacious garden suite adjoining another bedroom for the children.