Art in nature

Kitty Harri's sculpture garden is a truly special place. Someone in the intercambio told us about it and as it was another gorgeous day we decided to investigate.

Kitty is a Swedish artist and novelist who, after living in the Canaries, Canada, and Wales, decided to buy this hillside site which at the time was covered in loquat trees with just a simple house and a dirt track leading up to it. That was in 2003. Since then she has done amazing things, removing the fruit trees and replacing them with the kind of plants that thrive in this climate and are sculptural in themselves.

The garden is vast and naturally broken up into different areas by the terraces the fruit trees were grown on. They contain almost 200 artworks, half of which were made by Kitty. It's open two Sundays a month, and your 10-euro ticket includes a drink at the bar by the pool, so you can sit and sip a glass of wine while admiring the view and listening to a violin and harpsichord trio (including M, an intercambio friend -- we've spent enough time here to frequently bump into people we know at events; she was at last night's concert too).

We were very happy to spend over two hours imbibing the spirit of the place; it is truly special, and even though we explored all of it we will happily go back. Small Flickr album.

Afterwards we drove to Cantarrijan for some sunbathing and a very late lunch. It was nearly 5 pm by the time we finished eating, and to our surprise  it was still warm enough for another half hour on the beach. Home at six. Mystère was delighted to see us because he had spent all day defending the garden from a small tortoiseshell who has decided he is her best friend. She thinks he's just playing hard to get, unlike the actual tomcats pursuing her.