Marbella’s streets, beaches and hillside tracks will fill with walkers from nearly twenty countries between October 1 and 4, as the town hosts the fifteenth round of Marbella 4 Days Walking. Around 4,000 participants are expected, with roughly seven in ten travelling from abroad, making it one of the biggest international gatherings on the coast.

What exactly is Marbella 4 Days Walking?

Born in the Netherlands and now adopted by Marbella, this festival invites hikers of all abilities to pick between 10km, 20km and 30km circuits on each day of the event. Circuits wind through the old town, along the seafront promenade and up into the countryside towards the foothills of Sierra Blanca, giving entrants a proper look at Marbella beyond its beach clubs and marinas. Saturday and Sunday bring “Challenge” routes for anyone wanting an extra test of stamina.

Every stage starts and ends at the same central point near the seafront, where organisers lay on live music, food stalls and a proper festival atmosphere once the boots come off. Tradition has it that the closing stretch each year gets dressed up as the “Via Gladiolo” — named after the gladiolus flower, an old Roman symbol of victory, with walkers handed a flower as they cross the line.

City tourism chiefs have plenty to be happy about during this week. Organisers forecast between 20,000 and 25,000 overnight stays across the four days, a wonderful autumn boost for hotels, restaurants and shops during what is normally a quieter month once summer crowds thin out.

Remembering the man who started it all

This edition has extra meaning following the death of Hans Wohl, the festival’s founder, who passed away over the summer. Long-time participants have described his loss as deeply felt within an event that has grown from a small gathering into one of Spain’s largest walking festivals, with tributes to his legacy expected across the four days.

How to take part or cheer from the sidelines

Registration can be done via the official website, marbella4dayswalking.com, where walkers can book either a full four-day pass at €115 — covering all walking days plus entry to the evening Fiesta parties — or single days at €35 each. Places are capped at 4,000 participants, so anyone hoping to walk should check availability straight away, as spots close once that limit is reached.

Children can take part on shorter routes when accompanied by an adult, and roughly a hundred volunteers, coordinated by event representative Natascha van Steenkiste, will keep things running smoothly. No ticket is needed to watch: spectators can head to Plaza del Mar each afternoon to catch the finishes, complete with dancing, drinks and live bands.

Hours have turned into an agonising wait for one British family, as rescue teams comb through the wreckage of a collapsed Athens building in search of a 78-year-old man missing since a powerful explosion tore through his home.

Missing Briton still a focus of rescue operation

Living in one of Athens’ historic quarters, the pensioner occupied the second floor of a two-storey property on Lysikratous Street, in the Plaka district near the Temple of Zeus, together with his 77-year-old Greek wife. Neither has been accounted for since the blast struck shortly before 8am on Friday, September 25, collapsing the structure into a tangle of twisted metal, broken balconies and hanging concrete slabs. Force of the explosion was strong enough to be heard right across central Athens.

Others feared trapped in same building

Sharing the property with the British couple were tourists staying in a first-floor holiday rental, reported by various outlets as either three or four Americans. Due to catch a flight home to the United States that Friday afternoon, they failed to check in, meaning there was a possibility they never left the building. A young woman believed to be American was found dead in the rubble overnight, and five others, including the British man and his wife, are still unaccounted for.

Around thirty firefighters, six vehicles and specialist units from Greece’s elite EMAK rescue squad have descended on the scene, working with three sniffer dogs trained to detect signs of life. Sound-detection equipment and cameras designed to locate people beneath rubble are being deployed, and heavy machinery is clearing debris in careful stages, with operations paused periodically so rescuers can listen for any response. Saturday morning brought a small breakthrough, with a city spokesman confirming that enough wreckage had been removed to reach bedrooms towards the rear of the property, raising hopes that the missing pensioner and his wife might yet be found.

Cause of explosion still unconfirmed

Investigators from the Fire Department’s Arson Crimes Division are still at the site, working to establish what triggered the explosion; no official cause has yet been confirmed. Meanwhile, a Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office spokesperson confirmed the department is aware of a suspected explosion in Athens and is in touch with local authorities, adding that officials stand ready to offer assistance to British nationals abroad. Family of the missing 78-year-old, meanwhile, face a horrible anxious wait for news.

Twenty-eight crew and a lorry driver had only lifeboats between them and the flames tearing through their ferry’s cargo deck off Mykonos on Friday Septemeber 25. They’re all safely ashore now, but a day on, Greece’s coast guard is racing to stop the abandoned vessel sinking.

Flames tore through a garage packed with lorries 

At 8.57am on Friday, a fire broke out in the number four garage of the Blue Carrier 2, a Greek-flagged cargo ferry loaded with 166 lorries and 29 cars, as it sailed north of Mykonos. The vessel, run by Attica Group’s Blue Star Ferries brand, was on a domestic route out of Piraeus towards islands including Samos, Kos and Rhodes when the blaze took hold and spread quickly across the vehicle deck. 

The 28 crew and the one lorry driver on board didn’t wait to find out how far it would spread. They were into the ship’s lifeboats within minutes, with coast guard vessels and firefighting speedboats already on their way.

Blue Carrier 2 is a 162-metre, nearly 24,000-tonne vessel built in 1997, one of a fleet of ageing ro-ro ships that keep supermarkets and businesses on Greece’s smaller islands supplied. It’s a freight ferry rather than the passenger boats most holidaymakers book, which is why a lorry driver, rather than tourists, ended up caught in Friday’s fire. 

All 29 on board got away without a scratch

At least four coast guard vessels, two fast fire boats and a private salvage tug converged on the burning ferry, pulling everyone aboard and taking them to the nearby island of Tinos for medical checks. Attica Group confirmed all 29 were in good health, with no injuries reported despite the scale of the blaze.

It’s the kind of evacuation Greek authorities have handled before, and not always with the same ending. In February 2022, a fire aboard the Euroferry Olympia off Corfu killed 11 people after a search that stretched on for weeks, a grim reminder of how fast a vehicle deck fire can turn deadly once it reaches fuel tanks below. Friday’s blaze, by contrast, appears to have stayed on the open deck rather than spreading further into the ship.

Firefighting water may now be the bigger danger

By Saturday morning the fire itself had eased, but Blue Carrier 2 was leaning to one side, the result of the thousands of litres of water pumped aboard overnight to cool the wreckage. Greece’s Ministry of Shipping called an emergency meeting over the tilt, and anti-pollution equipment was placed on standby at nearby ports in case the ship’s fuel tanks are compromised.

The salvage tug Aigaion Pelagos is holding position alongside, pumping water back out in an effort to right the vessel before a specialist team can go below deck and assess just how much of it survived the fire.

A lorry is the leading suspect

Coast guard investigators believe the fire started in one of the lorries parked in garage four, though the exact cause hasn’t been confirmed. Among the cargo lost is fresh food bound for the islands, including meat, dairy and cheese, and freight firms are already bracing for the cost of both the vehicles and the spoiled deliveries.

Attica Group hasn’t yet said whether Blue Carrier 2 will be towed to Piraeus or elsewhere, or when the Samos, Kos and Rhodes route will run again. Anyone with a Greek island crossing booked through Blue Star Ferries in the coming days should check directly with the company before they travel.