Spain and Portugal for Visitors

The southernmost Costa Brava resort is a pleasant, family resort, with fine beaches and all the facilities you could want. This is Blanes' municipal website, the English only being available for the tourist information, which is fine by you, isn't it?

Blanes Costa Brava. Todo lo relacionado con esta vila turistica del Mediterraneo. The machine-translated English of this web directory is really comical.

Marimurtra "is considered the best Mediterranean botanical garden in Europe," you will find written in different places around the Net. I can't say whether it is true, but it is certainly impressive - another quote says "It is the most beautiful place I have ever seen." It dates from 1921, founded by German botanist Carl Faust, partly to preserve the local Mediterranean vegetation, already under threat from development. It now has 4 or 5,000 species from all around the world, presented in ecosystems from temperate to Mediterranean to subtropical, in 16 hectares of hilltop gardens overlooking the town of Blanes and the Mediterranean itself.

Be warned that while Marimur looks nice and close from the bottom of the hill, it's a longish climb, so take the L3 bus up, instead. And wheelchair users should also bear in mind that though the site is accessible, the terrain is not a comfortable one for wheelchair users or their accompanists.