THE BEST WAY to sum up Marimurtra Botanical Garden at Blanes in Catalonia is to say that it is quite like the Hanbury garden at La Mortola, but better maintained and with a larger collection of plants. There is another difference: the visitor to La Mortola is welcomed with a splendid and expansive overview of the whole garden, whereas Marimurtra reveals its most spectacular prospect at the far end of the garden.Marimurtra occupies a steep headland above the sea on the Costa Brava, Spain's most beautiful Mediterranean coastline. The garden was made by a German businessman called Karl Faustbetween 1918 and his death in 1952. Faust was born in 1874 to a Jewish family in Hadamar, Germany, and came to Barcelona in 1897 to work for a German company. In 1909 he set up his own hydraulic engineering business. It flourished, and still has branches throughout Spain, so Faust was able to retire at the age of 50 in 1924. He then devoted himself to developing his botanic garden.
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