One thing we love about Spain is that flowers are everywhere. If you appreciate flowers in bloom you can plan your trip to Spain around seeing flowers. Some you will come across without effort, like in summer lots of the motorways have pink and white oleander bushes in full bloom separating the opposite lanes of traffic. Every city and village has its square, park or boulevard lined with flowers. In this article, we will guide you to three special places to see some of the best flowers on offer and when best to see them. We know Spain really well and these areas are definitely pur favourites for flowers.
First is Cordoba in Andalucía. The best time to visit is in May when they hold a tournament for the prettiest flower decorated patio. Lots of traditional homes in the old historic part of the city participate and you can wander round and admire them. You need to confirm the dates of the tournament each year. If those dates don´t suit you, you can still see beautiful patios but you may not find all of them open to the public and you will not know where to find the best ones. You will get more out of it if you book a tour - here´s a link to one I can recommend. https://tripadvisor.tpk.mx/uHTOYkpT Below is a photo I took on one of our visits to the patios area..
Lean, Coco, and some of the flowers outside the patio home.
What we love to do is base ourselves at the parador of Carmona, a charming town dating back to Phoenician times when traders turned an existing small village into a thriving town. This became a fortress a few centuries later in Roman times. Then, several centuries later, it became an important town for the arabs, today´s parador at that time being a muslim castle. Then, after the arabs left, the parador was converted into a palace by king Pedro 1st. It sits right at the top of the hill so you can have a drink and a tapa on the terrace and enjoy stunning views of the surrounding countryside.
You will need a car if you base yourself in Carmona, as it is about an hour´s drive away. You´ll probably want to visit Sevilla too and that´s less than half an hour´s drive away. Sevilla´s Alcazar is full of beautiful gardens and flowers and is well worth a visit. Here´s a link you can use to stay at the parador in Carmona: https://tripadvisor.tpk.mx/ry3c5NFB It will show you the best offers, but what we like to book is including breakfast, freely cancellable, and no need to pay in advance. The parador breakfasts are fantastic, offering a wide selection of buffet items, including hot dishes, hams, cheeses, yoghourts, fruit, and regional cakes and specialities. Their dining options are also great and always include typical regional dishes. We like the healthy Cordoba speciality starter called salmorejo a tomato, bread, garlic and olive oil based cold puree soup.
Here are a few pictures of flowers and blossom taken in April.
Above, an oleander bush. They are often found in the wild by dry rivers.
A Jacaranda tree.
In April, depending on the weather, you may be able to see the spectacular cherry blossom in the Jerte valley, and poppy fields and wild flowers on Castilla La Mancha. For this expedition, I suggest making the old capital of Spain, Toledo, your base camp. Lean and I love the historic paradors in Spain - they offer charm, culture, comfort, excellent food with regional dishes and are fantastic value for money. In Toledo the parador was founded by the count of Toledo in the 14th century and is a majestic building standing at the top of the city. You can see pictures of it and book at this link: https://tripadvisor.tpk.mx/6uCCPxvJ You will need one day to see the poppy fields and flowers on Castilla La Mancha, and another day to visit the Jerte valley. If you are pressed for time, you could do both of them in one day. You will either need to hire a car (but read our article on hiring cars first) or hire a car and driver. To see the blossom in Jerte valley, head for a village called Valdastillas, near Plasencia. At the foot of the blossom by a river is a charming village called Cabezuela del Valle. Plasencia is also a town well worth stopping at. Below is a photo of us, the travelling donkeys, Anthony and Lean, in the Jerte valley enjoying the spectacular blossom.
To see the poppy fields and wild flowers head to Polàn, which is only about 20 km away from Toledo. Then I would suggest just driving around the countryside, stopping to walk on some of the many country dirt-tracks - where you will come across all kinds of flowers. You could head south to Consuegra and see the windmills of Don Quijote. From there you could head across Castilla la Mancha to Cuenca, where there are hanging houses, and a couple of kilometres outside the town spectacular rock formations in an area known as la Ciudad Encantada, - well worth walking round. Drop into the parador for a tapa or lunch and from there you can walk across the bridge over the gorge and see a great view of the hanging houses before entering the old city which is worth wandering around its narrow streets. From there, you can head back to Toledo, stopping at the charming towns of Chinchon and Aranjuez - be sure to go into the Palace gardens in Aranjuez which are also likely to be full of flowers. Here´s a photo of a poppy I took on this route and below it, one of my favourite flowers in Spain, the famous bouganvilla bushes
Our next destination is Estepona where we will visit one of Europe´s top orchidariums. We are crazy about orchids and seeing so many orchids in one place felt like entering paradise. Estepona is on the coast in Malaga province. What we like to do is base ourselves up in the mountains in a historic Roman town called Ronda, which has a beautiful parador - here´s a link to view and book it. https://tripadvisor.tpk.mx/uLDtWXAq During your stay there drive about an hour on a spectacular mountain road to Estepona. You can do a circle - from Ronda take the main road down to San Pedro de Alcántara and then drive towards Gibraltar for 20 minutes until you come to Estepona. There you can learn all about the orchidarium at this link: https://tripadvisor.tpk.mx/Xbi1dCPY If you are into wildlife, there is a great zoo where you can see many exotic animals in their natural habitat. Its called Selwo, and is advisable to book in advance. Here´s the link: https://tripadvisor.tpk.mx/KiWO8ckH Estepona has a nice promenade with lots of fish restaurants and in the summer months there are temporary beach shack restaurants called chiringuitos literally on the beach where you may get dishes like fire grilled sardines on a spit or freshly made shellfish paellas. If you decide to spend the night in Estepona we like a simple hotel right in the old town´s main square, minutes from the beach promenade, called the Estepona Plaza. - they have a rooftop terrace with a pool where you can relax and get great views, enjoy a first class hot and cold buffet breakfast to set you up for the day, and be in the most charming part of town, - here´s the link to look and book if you want to: https://tripadvisor.tpk.mx/jw6RoWOk By the way, you are close enough in Estepona to take a day trip to Gibraltar if you want to, which has alpine like flowers on the top of the rock and nice gardens by the cable car opposite the Rock Hotel. Here´s a link for a good tour but remember to tell them you need to be picked up and returned to Estepona: https://tripadvisor.tpk.mx/u1TxlwpK Of course, if you have your car, you can just drive to Gibraltar´s border at La Linea de la Concepción, walk into Gibraltar and just take a local tour for much less cost: https://tripadvisor.tpk.mx/ggdHJ7NO Now, finally ready to return to Ronda. You can take a mountain road up to the mountain overlooking Estepona where you can get great views of North Africa on a clear day, called Los Reales. You take the MA 8031 road directly from Estepona to Genalguacil and Algatocin where you turn right and keep going until Ronda - if you do this pretty route, make sure you detour to the top of Los Reales where there are walks and picnic tables, aswell as the great views.
Oleander flowers taken in Estepona.
We hope you have enjoyed this blog. The links in it recommending places can benefit us financially - we humbly ask you to make your bookings through these links as that helps us to keep this site up and running - and it won´t cost you any more than if you were to book directly on the provider`s own website. Also, in the event of a problem, it makes it easier for us to resolve it. Happy Travels! And we would very much appreciate it if you could forward this to those of your friends who love flowers and travelling. Thank you, and may God bless you. Lean and Anthony, the travelling donkeys.
