Gardens in Spanish Culture: from the Alhambra to Gaudí including the Córdoba Patio Festival - with John Patrick

23 April - 16 May 2013

Tour Highlights

This tour, led by John Patrick horticulturalist, garden designer and expert gardening commentator on ABC 720 Perth, is a feast of splendid gardens and great monuments from Spain's Mediterranean coast to the country's far north. Highlights of this tour include:

• • Meet Spanish garden designer Eduardo Mencos, author of Hidden Gardens of Spain. Eduardo and his wife Anneli will show us their family country farm in Extremadura, dedicated to the production of olive oil, as well as Eduardo’s own private garden ‘La Mirada’ and the garden of his grandmother, the Marquesa of Casa Valdés, author of the acclaimed book Spanish Gardens, near Madrid.
• • In Madrid, spend a memorable evening at the private home of art collector Sofía Barosso, who will host us for dinner, and enjoy a lecture by the award-winning sculptor and landscape designer Alvaro de la Rosa, who will talk about his groundbreaking and inspirational work.
• • Visit gardens on the Costa del Sol, near Marbella, designed by noted English landscape designer Gerald Huggan, who has lived and worked in Spain for forty years making exciting and notable changes in garden design and introducing fascinating exotic plant and tree species
• • Visit the Festival de los Patios in Córdoba, during which many delightful, hidden, Islamic-style courtyard gardens are opened to public view.
• • Discover Granada’s unique carmenes (villa gardens), Toledo’s cigarrales (country houses), Galicia’s distinctive pazos (manor houses), and visit private gardens hosted by their owners.
• • Encounter grand urban palaces, such as Seville’s Casa de Pilatos and the Pazo de Fefiñáns in Galicia.
• • Tour the monumental royal gardens of Aranjuez and La Granja de San Ildefonso near Madrid, and visit the splendid botanic gardens of Cap Roig on the Costa Brava north of Barcelona.
• • Learn the cultural meaning of Spain’s gardens by visiting a number of the country’s greatest monuments: Granada’s Alhambra, Córdoba’s Great Mosque, Seville’s magnificent Alcazar and Cathedral, and the great shrine of Spain’s patron saint, James, at Santiago de Compostela.
• • Encounter the greatness of 17th century masters like Velazquez and the genius of Goya, as well as German and Italian masterpieces, in the Prado
• • Explore Gaudí’s fantastic architecture in Barcelona.
• • Stay at several heritage hotels, including one of the most magnificent inns in Spain, the Parador de Santiago de Compostela as well as the Casas de la Judería, once a 16th century palace in the heart of Seville; the Parador de Ronda, overlooking the dramatic Tagus Gorge; the Hotel San Juan de los Reyes in the heart of the old Jewish quarter of Toledo; and the Hotel Palacio de los Velada, a converted 16th century palace located inside the city walls of Ávila

Visits include Santiago de Compostela Cathedral of St. James • Pazo de Oca • Pazo de Santa Cruz de Ribadulla • Pazo da Saleta • Fishing village of Combarro • Pazo de Fefiñáns • Pazo de Rubiáns • Pazo de San Lorenzo de Trasouto, Barcelona & Costa Brava Cap Roig Botanical Gardens • Tossa de Mar • Santa Clotilde Garden • Gaudí monuments, Seville Alcázar • Hospital de los Venerables Sacerdotes • Casa de Pilatos • Cathedral & Giralda, Palma del Río La Moratalla Garden • Palace of Madinat al-Zahra, Córdoba Córdoba Patio Festival • Alcázar Gardens • Great Mosque, Ronda Bullring • La Casa del Rey Moro, Costa del Sol Private gardens designed by Gerald Huggan (Benahavís, Sotogrande) • Village of Mijas • La Concepción Garden (Málaga), Granada Albaicín quarter • Carmen del Aljibe del Rey • Carmen de San Miguel del Albaicin• Alhambra & Generalife • Fundación Rodríguez-Acosta, Toledo Palacio de Aranjuez • Cigarral de los Menores • Palacio de Galiana • 'La Lancha' - private working farm and garden of Eduardo and Anneli Mencos, near Jarandilla de la Vera • Monasterio de San Jerónimo de Yuste, Ávila Garden of San Segundo, Madrid & surroundingsLa Granja de San Idelfonso • Monasterio de San Bartolomé de Lupiana • Private gardens and lunch hosted by Eduardo Mencos' family • 'La Mirada' - private garden of Eduardo Mencos • Prado Museum • Private home of art collector Sofía Barroso and talk by landscape designer Alvaro de la Rosa.

About the Tour

This tour is a feast of splendid private gardens and great monuments in one of Europe’s most fascinating countries, Spain. It explores the unique gardening tradition of Iberia from the Romans to the present day, taking into account a number of key factors that distinguish Spain from the rest of Europe. Spain, the second highest country in Europe, boasts an extraordinary ecological diversity, which encompasses the verdant north with a rainfall equalling that of England, and the semi-arid landscapes of the Central Meseta and Andalucía, which resemble the climate of many parts of North Africa and Australia.

Research for this tour has been extremely thorough and we have contacted a number of private owners and organisations, as well as leading contemporary Spanish landscape architects such as Eduardo Mencos, whose book Hidden Gardens of Spain, has gained international recognition. We shall explore a number of important private gardens, such as 'La Mirada', Mencos’s own private garden near Madrid, which he will personally show us. The tour is timetabled, moreover, to coincide with the Festival de los Patios in Córdoba, during which hundreds of delightful courtyard gardens in the Islamic style, usually hidden from public view, open their doors to compete for a prestigious award. In order to set Spain’s unique gardening traditions in context, the tour also visits many of the country’s greatest monuments and explores its unique cultural history.

We begin in verdant Galicia whose climate is so different from that of Andalucia and Castile. Here we visit private gardens where plantings more like those of northern Europe are possible. Most notable is the Camelia which thrives in Galician gardens at the end of the winter season and beginning of spring. Originating from subtropical regions in China, Japan and neighbouring countries, they were brought in to the Occident by sea three centuries ago and have become Galicia’s most representative flower. In the vicinity of Santiago de Compostela, we shall discover some of the most beautiful and celebrated pazos of Spain, such as the Pazo de Oca, a delightful eighteenth century ancestral manor house built in Galician grey granite. In Santiago de Compostela, we stay at the palatial pilgrim hospice built by Isabella of Castile, the oldest and arguably the most fascinating hotel in all Europe.

No study of Spain’s uniqueness would be complete without a visit to Barcelona and an investigation of the country’s most important twentieth-century architect. We shall spend a day exploring the masterpieces of Antoní Gaudí, like the Parc Güell, originally intended as a garden suburb, and shall also travel out of the city to visit the fascinating Santa Clotilde and Cap Roig Botanical Gardens, which enjoy some of the best views of Spain’s beautiful Costa Brava coastline.

We then head south to Andalucia where the Islamic imprint is strongest, not only in magnificent monuments like Granada’s Alhambra and Córdoba’s Great Mosque, but also in the profound influence of Muslim traditions on Christian palaces and gardens such as Pedro the Cruel’s magnificent Alcázar and the Casa de Pilatos in Seville, as well as the lovely small houses with patios in Córdoba and Granada. Visits to the key monuments of these great cities are supplemented by journeys to some of Andalucia’s loveliest white towns, such as Ronda. We then travel north to Toledo and explore its surrounding countryside with its famous cigarrales, charming country houses or farms and their private gardens, olive groves and orchards. We shall also visit the great Baroque garden of the Royal Palace of Aranjuez.

From Toledo we travel to the western frontier region of Extremadura, where Eduardo and his wife Anneli will open their family country estate near Yuste especially for the group and host a lunch of organic produce from the farm. We then head north again into Old Castile to Ávila where we visit the splendid garden of San Segundo, protected  within the famous city walls. Near Segovia, we also visit Aranjuez’s counterpart, the royal palace gardens of La Granja de San Ildefonso.

Our tour of Spain ends in Madrid where we visit one of the world's greatest art collections at the Prado Museum. We also enjoy a very special day hosted by Eduardo Mencos and his family at their private gardens near Madrid. We conclude our program with a memorable evening at the private home of Sofía Barosso, who will show us her private art collection and host a talk by award-winning landscape designer Alvaro de la Rosa.

This tour affords a unique opportunity, made possible by the enthusiastic assistance of many Spaniards, to interact with what is arguably Europe’s most distinctive culture and environment, and to immerse yourself in gardens that at times bear fascinating contrasts and comparisons to those of our own semi-arid Australia.