Book Review: Swedish author Anneli Bojstad teams up with her husband, the celebrated Spanish photographer Eduardo Mencos, to spotlight 40 alluring Spanish gardens, reaching across the countryside from north to south, onward to the Canary Islands, Mallorca and Menorca.
Great Gardens of Spain: Published by Frances Lincoln Ltd.
The reader who suffers from wanderlust will appreciate the inclusion of settings you will be able to visit, as each garden can be toured by garden sojourners. Boistad emerges as an excellent tour guide, enriching her engaging descriptions of design elements, outstanding hardscape features and important plantings by explaining the historical context and symbolism that colors each landscape. It’s quickly apparent, Spanish gardens vary with the terrain: they cannot be grouped within one style, nor do they all share similar growing conditions or habitat.While you may be familiar with the idiosyncratic wonders of Gaudi’s Park Güell, or the magnificence of El Generalife and the Alhambra, I’m guessing even devout garden enthusiasts will find places they hope to visit if that next trip to Spain becomes possible. Boistad reveals Parque Sama in Cataluna, designed by the same architect – Fonstsere i Mestre, who designed Barcelona’s La Ciudedela. It’s believed that Gaudi may also have worked here, given the park’s oddly fantastical rockwork.
The exquisite formality of Segovia’s majestic Palacio Real de La Granja de San Ildelfonso is shown in a panoply of year-round seasonal vignettes: Likewise, Madrid’s Real Monasterio de San Lorenzo de El Escorial, together with many other of the city’s public spaces. Look for a garden in Aragon where nature reigns in stunning cascades of rushing water and serene woodlands, the Monasterio de Piedra.
Garden travelers may wish to make full use of the ‘Information for Visitors’ listing. All the pertinent contact information appears here, whether your future plans take you to the Atlantic region, the Mediterranean or Andalusia.
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Garden of the Hesperides – Valencia, Spain
 Garden of the Hesperides - Photo © Alice Joyce Valencia offers garden travelers and aficionados of modern landscape architecture a trove of settings to fill their days. Strolling away from the city center along Calle de Quart, you’ll pass through the ancient towers on the way to the botanical gardens, appearing on your right. Across the street from the gardens, I booked a room at a boutique hotel, Hotel Jardin Botanico.
The El Carmen neighborhood is an artistic hub; a place to enjoy a bite to eat in a small cafe frequented by Valencians. My time in Valencia was coming to an end when I experienced an exhilarating finale to my exploration of Spain’s third largest city:
The Garden of the Hesperides, adjacent to the University’s Jardi Botanic, but tucked away on Gaspar Bono street.
In Greek mythology, the daughters of the god Hesperus dwelled in an idyllic mountain garden at the edge of the world. Guarded by a dragon, this arcadian realm was known for its tree of golden apples. The nymphs (sometimes called the African Sisters) provided inspiration for what I found to be Valencia’s most surprising public space. Constructed around the Millennium, the ‘Hesperides’ is the work of….
VAM 10 Arquitectura Studio: Designed by Maria Teresa Santamaria, agricultural technical engineer, & architects Antonio Gallud, Carlos Campos, and Miguel del Rey.
 Hesperides Plantings - Photo © Alice Joyce In the contained space of a Hortus Conclusus, the designers called upon symbolic elements to relate to the scented landscapes of early Catalonia. A collection of citrus species hearkens to the admirable horticulture of Valencia’s 15th century. Cypresses are planted as prominent structural forms. Water cascades through channels. Fountains freshen the air. In the words of the designers, “The garden is a setting for dreams…where…the highest, most generous thoughts come to mind.” In naming the garden, they looked to the nymphs as “the symbol of fertility.” In the sophistication of this public park, the Garden of the Hesperides helps to define the spirit of Valencia in the new Millennium with a refreshingly modern landscape design: A layout animated by the historical significance of its Mediterranean plantings, water features, and sculptural focal point.
Enter the confines of this walled retreat, and you escape from the nonstop traffic of a nearby thoroughfare. Two concrete gates swivel into a locked or unlocked position; the material given textural treatments that set polished surfaces against raw sections. Inlaid with linear strips of black and cream-colored marble, the gates have a presence that calls to mind vast canvases in an art galley.  Concrete detail: Photo © Alice Joyce Underfoot, the walkway contains subtle leaf patterns suggestive of fossil remains.
The landscape’s bold geometry caters to botanically inclined visitors with a composition incorporating rows of fragrant lavender and germander shrubs, bisected by walls of emerald green foliage interspersed with palm trees. Exuberant bougainvillea clad pergolas provide a shady respite, while an espalier of ‘Toscana’ lemons basks in the sun. Water gently flows within the angular outlines of a rill, the channel dipping beneath the ground, and ultimately finding its way into a rectangular pond.
On the expansive terraces, a lovely Salix babylonica weeps, in alliance with ’Metamorfosis‘ …a sculpture by Miklos A. Palfy. Great Gardens in Spain .. Amazon.com Valencia’s Green Zone: the TURIA GARDENS on Alice’s Garden Travel Buzz
Where the Turia river once flowed, the Turia Gardens now comprise a 170,000-square-meter expanse , with sports facilities, bike paths, exercise stations, & lush gardens superimposed upon the dry river bed. Its rambling beauty is revealed on a stroll eastward, along distinctive sections that wrap around the heart of old Valencia’s serpentine streets and plazas. An area visually rich with Baroque, Romanesque, Gothic and Mudejar architecture. Architect Santiago Calatrava’s City of Arts & Sciences will be the stunning finale to our discovery of ‘the Turia.’ We continue along now, taking up where my feature on the Turia Gardens – Green Zone ended at Santiago Calatrava’s Exposition Bridge. The Turia walkway goes on, after wrapping around the lovely old quarter of Valencia, past Bofill’s Modernist landscape design adjacent to the music palace.
 Turia Landscape .. Valencia's City of Arts & Sciences designed by Santiago Calatrava (ALICE JOYCE photo) Soon we come upon a densely planted landscape, fragrant with swathes of herbs and bosks of trees which will braid together as they reach maturity in the undulating grounds of a vast complex – the City of Arts & Sciences, designed by architect/engineer Santiago Calatrava.
 Calatrava-designed footbridge (Alice Joyce photo)
A small footbridge bears the mark of a Calatrava design, Valenica’s native son. At last the ‘City’s’ true entryway comes into view: Calatrava designed L’Umbracle to conceal. Its form stands atop a parking garage. Calatrava also created sculptural forms sheated in mosaics to house the elevators and mask air conditioning units. (In the photo, the form appears in the distance.)  L'Umbracle - City of Arts & Sciences (Alice Joyce photo) A word derived from Latin, l’umbracle is a sort of shade house. In this case, one that captures the imagination. An innovative, open-air public space, the 18-meter-high structure possesses an intrinsic clarity of light for the trove of plants that grow within. There are terraces for relaxation and receptions: Allees of palms, ornamental vines, and aromatic species such as shrubs native to the region commingle with bitter orange trees, rockrose, plumbago, and buddleja. Great Gardens Spain .. Amazon.com
 Palace of the Arts, Valencia (ALICE JOYCE photo) The spectacle of the City of Arts and Sciences looms like a dream: Calatrava’s gleaming white, organic architectural forms in glass, steel and concrete emphatically proclaiming Valencia’s place in the new millennium. Situated amid a 7,000 square-meter green space and sculpture park, completed in 2007, the ‘City’ arises in a formerly depressed industrial area a few kilometers from the sea.
Above: The Palace of the Arts offers a head-turning concept, with pencil cypresses breaking the surface of the pale blue water encircling the building. L’Hemisferic Planetarium (Alice Joyce photo) Calatrava’s stunning design of the City presents a modern-day mecca of art and technology: In the Umbracle and L’Hemisferic; the emblematic Palau de les Arts – Palace of the Arts; and the Museu de les Ciencies Principe Felipe – Prince Felipe Science Museum. A building designed by Felix Candela, L’Oceanografic, a marine park, completes the complex. |
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