Mijas hotel beloved of Princess Di, Rolling Stones to reopen

The Byblos hotel has recently been bought for €60m, and is expected to open in a few months.

The infamous ‘topless’ paparazzi shots of Princess Diana that cascaded around the world in the early ‘90s were a huge story, coming at a time when the Princess had announced her withdrawal from public life and impending divorce from Prince Charles.

The lesser-known details of that story are that the Princess was, at the time, enjoying one of her soon-to-be regular visits to the Costa del Sol, and it was at a hotel near Mijas that the pictures were taken…

That hotel, the Byblos, was for two decades a firm favourite among A-list visitors to the Costa del Sol, attracting not only British royalty but also members of the Saudi royal family, as well as bonafide rock royalty in the form of the Rolling Stones.

Opened in 1986, the Byblos hotel has been closed since 2010 as former owner, British tycoon Alan Sugar, had sought – to no avail – a buyer. Well, his wait is now over following a €60 million investment from Madrid-based real estate firm Ayco Inmobiliaria, which purchased the 135-room hotel in September.

The developer has since pledged to reopen the hotel as soon as possible, and it is expected that the doors to the iconic blue and white building will be flung open early in 2017, bringing with it as much as 300 jobs for the local economy.

The hotel has long been a symbol of the fortunes of the Costa del Sol: glamorous, exclusive and charming, and even its recent troubles and subsequent happy ending almost mirror the region’s own dealings with Spain’s wider recession.

Today, the Costa del Sol is rediscovering the mojo that made it such a magnet for the world’s elite, playboys, rock and pop stars, and the rich and famous after a slight recession-driven downturn.

And according to Mijas Mayor Juan Carlos Maldonado, the reopening of the Byblos is significant for a couple of other reasons, not least as an indicator of the Costa del Sol as a year-round getaway destination, for the hotel can offer golf, health and gastronomic tourism whatever the weather, he said.