Buses to and around Estepona AKA What the bus company doesn't tell you!

.

BUSES to and around Estepona

There are four types of bus in Estepona.

• The urbano buses

• The local buses

• The inter-city buses

• The airport buses

And there's the new Bus Station - Estación de Autobuses - which has made things just a little trickier in some ways.

Urbano buses

The urbano buses are run by Autocares Ricardo, with good sized mini-buses.  Sometimes they are posh ones, sometimes smaller pale grey ones. 

There are two routes, Linea 1 (circular) and Linea 2. A third route, Linea 3, was set up, for the summer months only, in 2017, going out to the West of the town.  No promises that it will run again this summer, but cross your fingers.

You can download the timetable and routes here:http://www.autocaresricardo.com/es/horarios-urbano-nuevos-sept2015

Do not, however, believe the times. The first one of the day doubtless leaves on time (never been up that early to check!), but the rest just pootle along and get to any stop at any time.I once caught one at 5.15.  I asked "Is this the 5 o'clock bus or the 5.30 bus?" (I am bilingual in Spanish - no communication problems. ) The reply was: "This is the bus that I am driving". In other words, whenever I want to go. :-)

One thing to note: both routes stop at the new bus station out of town. Going East, ie. into town from the Marbella end, they drive into the bus station and stop right outside the building. Going West they stop just past it on the other side of the road, a two-minute hop to the bus station. However, they are so unreliable that it's best not to bank on them to get you there on time to catch a bus. Take a taxi if you are going for an expensive long-distance bus, you don't want to miss it.

Going East all the way along the seafront, from the Plaza de Toros (Bull Ring) to the big Carrefour hypermarket, past the new Estación de Autobuses and further on to McDonalds, both routes run, so there are 4 buses an hour along there from West to East. In the other direction the circular bus goes up and round the Avenida de Andalucia, so there's just the one route all the way along the seafront promenade, therefore only two buses an hour from East to West.

Autumn 2017 the ticket price is 1€10 including children.

Three of the routes count as local buses, run by the Portillo company. These are the Estepona to Casares bus, the Estepona to La Linea bus for going to Gibraltar, (but NOT the La Linea Directo bus), and the 79 Estepona to Marbella bus, via San Pedro and Puerto Banus.

The Casares and La Linea buses all start from the new Estación de Autobuses which is near the Conference Centre, past the big Carrefour hypermarket on the road to Marbella. You can get there on an Urbano (see above), or by taxi. Allow yourself enough time to buy your ticket – they won't allow you to get on at the bus station without one. On the way back, there is a taxi rank by the side of the bus station if you can't bear the wait for the Urbano.

However, these buses also stop at some bus stops along the seafront. Careful – they don't all stop at them all! And there, obviously, you can get on without buying a ticket first, so you save a queue as well as a walk.

Here are the stops:

Estepona Centro (most of them don't stop here, so don't get your hopes up) going West towards the Bull Ring is about 100 metres before the Calle Terraza junction, going East towards Marbella is on the beach side, opposite the weird red and green building with a uniform shop on the ground floor, more or less outside the Chiringuito El Madero.

El Bingo is some way along the seafront, just the other side of the roundabout with the fountain and the horses, near the Avenida Juan Carlos 1 junction. It's called El Bingo because until recently there was - guess what -  a Bingo there. There still is a Gaming Room, but it doesn't say Bingo, just Sala Estepona, Ruleta. Currently by the bus stop there's a Beauty Salon called AQA – but these come and go.

The Antiguo Portillois on the other side of the road, for buses coming back into town, a 100 meters or so from El Bingo. It is immediately opposite the tall yellow building, the tallest building in all Estepona, where the old Portillo bus station used to be. Hence its name.

The Plaza de Toros stop is easy to find – it's just below the Bull Ring, across the road from the Marina. N.B. on the way back, the stops for getting off are not immediately opposite the stops for getting on (see below), except at the Plaza de Toros. Ask the driver when you get on, saying Estepona Antiguo Portillo, or Estepona Toros, and with a bit of luck he'll shout when he gets there.  If you recognise where you are, of course, you ring the bell.

There is also a stop just 200 yards further up the road from the Plaza de Toros, going in to Estepona, by the Lighthouse.  The stop is called El faro.

Now here comes a complicated bit. The buses stop in different places.

CASARES. The bus starts at the Estepona bus station. It then also stops to pick up passengers at El Bingo, and at Plaza de Toros, then on to Sabinillas, Manilva and Casares. You have to buy a ticket before getting on at the bus station, but can buy from the driver at El Bingo and Plaza de Toros. Very convenient

On the way back, it goes, obviously, to the bus station. But with different stops. It does NOT normally stop at the Plaza de Toros (but it stopped at the El Faro stop when I was coming back at the end of October.) It stops officially at the Antiguo Portillo, and then it goes to the bus station. It doesn't stop elsewhere in town. Different stops on the way there and the way back. :-)

The driver may not want to stop at Estepona Centro because if the Ricardo Urbano bus drivers see him they would report him and he could lose his job.  It's seen as competition to the urbano buses, you see.

 *sigh*

LA LINEA. The buses all start at the Estepona bus station. But some are Directo, some are Ruta. The Ruta ones go round the villages and thus take longer. Therefore – get this! - the fast Directo air-conditioned bus is cheaper as the prices are based on mileage. So slow and boring and hot is expensive.

You can only tell the difference between Directo and Ruta buses by looking at the printed timetable – link later on for downloading it – and looking at whether there's a box round the time. Box = Directo

The Directo bus goes straight there along the motorway, does not go through the town, so you have to get it at the bus station. However the Ruta bus also stops at El Bingo on the way there, and you pay as you get on. This is generally the best place to get it.  In theory it does not stop anywhere in town on the way back, but  you might be lucky if you ask nicely as you get on in La Linea, and it might stop at the Antiguo Portillo or at El Faro.

So that was for the Casares and La Linea buses. Now for the most popular route – the 79 to Marbella via San Pedro and Puerto Banus. This is slightly more complicated, but at least you don't have to queue to buy a ticket to get on it.

Number 79  MARBELLA via SAN PEDRO & PUERTO BANUS. It used to go to and from the old bus station, and then from the temporary bus terminal in the Avenida Juan Carlos. Now it goes to and from the Plaza de Toros (Bull Ring) up by the Marina. 

It's important to know this when catching it towards Marbella, because of the times: it leaves the Plaza de Toros/Marina pretty promptly at quarter to and quarter past the hour (except for the late evening ones), so for picking it up in town, you need to add just a few minutes.

You can pick it up at the stop called Antiguo Portillo – not very near the Bingo stop in the other direction, but exactly opposite the tallest building on Estepona seafront, where the old bus station was. It has a nice rustic bus shelter. From then on it stops at the bus-stop further along the seafront – Estepona Centro - where it is opposite the weird red and green building with a uniform shop on the ground floor, more or less outside the Chiringuito El Madero.  You can also catch it further along the Avenida del Litoral just a bit past the entrance for the Carrefour Hypermarket, and opposite McDonalds.

On the way back for getting off, it stops at McDonalds, at Carrefour, at the very beginning of the seafront promenade, (just past the statue of Hercules with his two pillars and his lion), at the Estepona Centro stop (just a bit further along from the outward stop - about 100 metres before the Calle Terraza junction), at El Bingo and then to the Plaza de Toros.  

Where you cannot catch this most popular of all the buses is at the bus station. It doesn't even stop near the bus station. The service is run by Portillo, the bus station has been built by Portillo, this bus does not stop there. For heaven's sake!

Apparently the Town Hall has given the concession for town urbano buses to Ricardo, so cannot let the 79 bus stop there. *sigh*

Here is the complicated bit. And the worst thing of all is that the 79 bus can only be caught in Estepona if you are getting off OUTSIDE the municipal area!

In other words, you cannot get on it at the Bingo and then get off at Cancelada or Isdabe - the driver will only pick upinside the municipal boundary when going towards Marbella, it woon't put you down.  And on the way back from Marbella, it will let you get off anywhere in Estepona, but it will not pick up inside Estepona to take you to the town centre.  This is all part of the agreement with the Ricardo buses who have the monopoly within the town limits.

This is extremely annoying for anyone in Cancelada who has to rely on the Ricardo buses that come at any old time, instead of the very punctual Portillo 79.  :-(

Inter-city buses

These are the ones that go to Malaga (both the express and the ones that goes via Torremolinos and Benalmadena), Algeciras, Cadiz, Cordoba, Madrid, Granada, and La Linea Directo.

They all go from the Estación de Autobuses ONLY. No stops in town. You have to get an urbano or a taxi, or Shank's pony, to get there. Timed it one morning in June at a pace suited to the heat - it took 40 minutes on foot from the Bingo bus stop.

You can download the timetable for the local and intercity buses here:

http://portillo.azurewebsites.net/archivos/files/horarios/Horario-de-autobuses-de-Estepona.pdf

They publish a new timetable quite often; any changes are made on 1st of the month. Best to buy the ticket at least the day before to be sure that there will be places available, if it's really important to you to catch that bus. Which, of course, means going to the bus station to do so.  :-(

Airport buses

This is put here separately because it is slightly different from the other services. It's the same timetable as shown above. In the summer timetable, and the September one, there are 6 a day – six! - in each direction. N.B. by  November ,  It is now winter timetable and there are only two a day.

And there are two sorts of Airport bus – those that start at Estepona (where you have a better chance of getting on) and those in coming from Algeciras en route to Malaga town. These will be more crowded and you'll need to buy your ticket a few days earlier. The two buses also go a different route through the town with different pick up stops on different sides of the road . . .

The buses from Algeciras to the airport are the ones on the current timetable at 7.15 and 14.30, and are marked in pink as Servicio Plus. This just means that they have wifi, and that the chap in front has inclined his seat to have a doze so that you are cramped in yours. :-)

They leave the bus station at those printed times. They pick up in the town at the Antiguo Portillo stop anything from 10 to 20 minutes earlier. As it is so imprecise you might feel safer, since it's to catch a plane, going to the bus station by taxi and picking it up there.

The airport buses leaving from Estepona have a pick up at El Bingo about 5 minutes after they leave the bus station.

On the way from the airport to Estepona they don't in theory stop in the town unless you ask. However, in both cases they will go first to the station and you wait there, out of the bus, for them to go again and can only go on again if they haven't got a full load of other passengers. Better to wait for an Urbano or take a taxi.

For both airport services you are advised to buy a ticket at least one day in advance to be sure that you'll get on.

Drop-Offs: at the bus station. If someone is dropping you off, coming from Estepona town centre they have to drive past the station (it's a dual carriageway), turn round at the roundabout, and drive back. The entrance is NOT the tempting one just before the station, but immediately after, where it says TAXI. There's a little road there round past the taxi rank and back out near the bus exit onto the main road.