Flower Power for the kids!

Spring is a time when I get many requests of tours for students who are on a trip visiting Barcelona. Sometimes, appart from the usual cultural tours, their program also includes some specialty tours related to their studies.

This week I had the kids from Lycée Briacé (Nantes, France), who are taking agriculture studies with a special focuss on the flower market.

Their travel agency had arranged a professional visit to the Wholesale Flower and Plant Market in Vilassar de Mar, and I joined them there to help translating from Catalan into French, their mother tongue. We first were shown a video on the history of the Market, then our guide Ana informed us about how the market operates, and finally we were allowed up on a passarelle from where we could see the market in full action. That was so interesting!

After that, we continued to Barcelona, where I gave them a tour of our Botanical Garden. I've always loved plants (that's thanks to my grandma and my mom!), and I really enjoy giving garden tours. We discovered there how the Mediterranean climate is also to be found in other areas of the world (California, Australia, Chile, South-Africa...), and how plants from points so distant one from the other have adapted to similar weathers in similar ways. It was fun comparing species, and learning curious facts on their seeds, flowers, leaves, as well as their uses.
I was sad to see how the last snow storm had damaged and burnt many of the most delicate specimens, but it was beautiful to see the "survivors" in full bloom!