WOW! SO. Spain looks a lot like SO. Florida! Beautiful!

LOL Bihai! I guess it must!
The trainstation is most surprising and incredible.

I LOVE those pics! I was able to go to Marbella once in 8th grade, and it was sooooo beautiful, it was what I had imagined Paris to be. I actually stayed the night in Torremolinos and then spent the next day in Malaga. I encourage everyone to check out the Costa Del Sol.

Xerophyte: You gotta tell us more about your trip! :)

BTW, that type of environment isn't very typical in the Cadiz area. The palms are prevalent with a good batch of eucalyptus (that's about it), but remember the ground is pretty dry and chalky for all the wine grapes to grow. :)

Beautiful hotel grounds, reminds me of So. California. The Atocha train station is really cool, all the people hanging over the railing by the pond are watching the turtles in the water.

Spain's tropical?? Had no idea.. They're definitely giving it a Florida-esque look. Haha. Very beautiful pictures!

flordiapalmgirl: Although the gardens and resort areas are particularly lush-as you can see, Spain is farrrr from tropical. It's a Meditereannean climate for the most part, and humidity levels are below noticeable. This is espicially true below the Cantabrian range where the weather is mostly dry.
No offense, just sharing some information.

Like Tropicalista says, Spain is definately not tropical! I lived in Puerto Sotogrande, close to the Spanish/Gibralter border, for three years and the summers were hot and dry with barely any humidity. Winters were very cold, just like the rest of the western Med (I experienced snow in Cannes one year!). Marbella used to be a an upper end tourist resort. Very exclusive, with beautiful homes and hotels. I would be interested to know if it has remained that way.

For the most part it's the hotel grounds and private home landscaping that is tropical-looking in southern Spain. Supplemental irrigation is a must because the summers are dry. It's warm enough, but not enough precipitation for many plants.

The highways are lined with Canary Island Date Palms. White Bird-of-Paradise, Bougainvilleas, Oleanders and Cycads are found everywhere too.

It reminds me of the resort areas of Hawaii, which climate-wise are desert-like, but with irrigation you can grow almost anything.

Marbella and the other coastal towns are big on tourism, especially London's upper-class and many Germans too - south Spain is to Brits like Florida is to New Yorkers. One town, Puerto Banus, has been dubbed the Spanish Monte Carlo, with ritzy hotels, dining, shopping, yachts and fancy cars.

Coming from New York City though, I was not all that impressed with the supposed "glamor", but the scenery was spectacular nonetheless.

Thanks, y'all. I forgot Spain was near the Med. Sea. Ha.

I live in Malaga and I can say there is a zone in the coast between one city called Torrox and Granada with a subtropical climate, I think is similar South California, here is a link of a nursery of this zone:

http://www.viverosblanco.com/productos.html
http://www.viverosblanco.com/otros.html

Viveros Rocks! I used to go to the one in Rota (that's where I lived), as well as, I believe the one in Puerto de Santa Maria near the El Paseo Centro Commercial.
It's definitely a dry area, but those that can afford the landscaping hire gardeners that tend to the Birds of Paradise and other subtropical plants. :)

oh wow!!!! i love the train station!!!!!

looks like paradise...
cliff

I also live in the Malaga area (Rincon de la Victoria, just to the west) and I grow about 60 varieties of Passiflora and all the tropical climbers I can! Quisqualis, Thunbergias, Aristolochias, Jasmins, Hoyas. Frosts are extremely rare here and as long as we have water (which due to the current drought is questionable in the future) almost anything grows!! My father in law used a stick of Poinsettia to stir a can of paint and then stuck it in the ground for later disposal. He forgot it and it grew!!