On the slopes of Montjuic, among the stadiums built for the 1992 Olympic Games, the Jardi Botanic de Barcelona spreads across about 14 hectares of gently terraced hillside. The garden specialises in plants from the world's Mediterranean-climate regions. It opened in 1999, replacing an older botanical garden on the same hill that had been damaged and closed during construction for the Olympics. The new garden was developed over several years on a former landfill site reshaped for the purpose. Its planting is organised by geography, grouping species from the five parts of the world that share a Mediterranean climate of dry summers and mild, wet winters: the Mediterranean basin itself, California, central Chile, the Cape region of South Africa and south-western Australia. The design, by a team including the architects Carles Ferrater and Josep Lluis Canosa and the landscape architect Bet Figueras, is based on a triangular grid of paths that follows the natural contours of the slope. This allowed the garden to be laid out with little earth-moving, the routes adapting to the terrain. Visitors move through a series of planted units arranged so that each group of species sits in conditions resembling its native habitat, while the elevated position gives wide views over the city and the Olympic ring. The grounds also house the Botanic Institute of Barcelona, with an important library and one of the largest herbariums in Catalonia, reflecting the garden's role in research and conservation as well as display. A particular focus is the protection and study of the native flora of Catalonia, alongside the international collections, and the garden documents and conserves plants under threat. Quieter than the better-known attractions of Montjuic, it offers a scientifically arranged landscape that doubles as a calm vantage point above Barcelona.

Type: Tourist Attraction

Address: Montjuic, Barcelona, Spain

Opening Date: 01/01/1999