My travel sketchbook: Plaza de Santo Cristo, Marbella
Of the many pages now full of pen-drawings in my sketchbook, a hefty percentage show Mediterranean city squares, usually with a fountain in the middle. Last week I featured my sketch of the Plaza de la Victoria in Marbella, and this week continues the trend with the Plaza de Santo Cristo, which can be found a mere 5 minute stroll away in the same pretty Casco Antiguo (old town) of Marbella. Why I have such an obsession with sketching these squares remains ever clear to me. In the streets you discover a quaint atmosphere, but in these little cobbled plazas, you find all that and more – the trickle of water from a central fountain, the grandeur of bigger buildings reserved for these show-piece plazas, and a panoply of plants and flowers giving shade to the locals who gather there.
All of these features can be found in the Plaza de Santo Cristo, which features one of Marbella’s most iconic little churches, a flamenco club, mountain view, and of course a fountain at its centre. But perhaps what I love most of all in the square is the relationship between the long bendy palms set against the typically Andalucian white-washed walls of the church. Magnificent.
Plaza de Santo Cristo, Marbella (2015 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, pen on paper)
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