When we planned the upcoming trip, we were sure that the easiest way for us (as we love travelling by car and don't mind spending some extra money on this compared to buses or trains) would be to rent a car in Madrid. But this is in fact way too inconvenient.

If you (or at least us) try to rent a car in Madrid for 3 weeks, your cheapest option would be about Euro 200, plus insurance, plus additional driver, plus limited daily mileage, plus inability to go to Portugal or Gibraltar (which is pretty likely you may want to do being in Manilva). Just if you don't know: if you rent a car in Malaga airport, you get a nice 5 door car for about about Euro 30 (the same 3 weeks), additional driver, unlimited mileage and permits to go to Portugal / Gibraltar included. All you need is to pay the full insurance or a safety deposit.

As we needed an additional driver badly, and absolutely didn't want to pay for this we certainly rented a car in Malaga airport. So, we needed to get to Malaga first.

The best way to reach Malaga from Madrid is probably the train. It costs about Euro 37 for the cheapest ticket and it takes only 3 hours to get to Malaga. Anyway, we've started saving money, so we opted for a bus. It's only Euro 25 per person, but it travels for 6 or sometimes almost 7 hours. Probably not much fun, but we hope we'll be able to see some parts of Spain we've never been to.

And the final gap is between Malaga bus station and Malaga airport, which was found out to be covered by a suburban train: only 8 minutes and about Euro 2,5. So we are all set now though it will take us a whole day to get reach Manilva.

If you don't drive or wouldn't like to rent a car in Spain then Manilva is probably not for you. According to Manilva's council web site, one would first take a bus from Malaga airport to Marebella, then another one from MArbella to Estepona and then the last one from Estepona to Puerto Duquesa where you may need a taxi to reach your final destination.