Europe’s palm groves: sun without the long flight

You do not have to cross an ocean for a palm. Europe has date groves older than most cathedrals, an island with a wild palm forest and a coast that invented the palm-lined promenade. For anyone in Europe, these are the trips that need a two to four hour flight and no jet lag.

Elche, Spain: the oasis in Europe

Ten minutes from Alicante airport are more than 200,000 date palms, planted by the Moors in the 10th century and irrigated by channels they designed. The Palmeral is a UNESCO site, still harvested for dates, and it looks like Morocco with a Spanish menu. Combine it with the Costa Blanca beaches, twenty minutes away. Guide to the Costa Blanca.

Vai, Crete: the wild one

At the eastern tip of Crete a beach is backed by five thousand Cretan date palms, a species found almost nowhere else. It is the largest natural palm forest in Europe and it feels like the Caribbean until you order a Greek salad. Preveli, on the south coast, has a smaller grove along a river. Guide to Crete.

The Riviera: the invented one

The English wintering in Nice in the 1820s paid for a seafront walk and planted palms along it, and every promenade from Cannes to Menton copied them. Menton, the warmest town in France, has gardens that grow bananas and cycads outdoors. Guide to Nice and the Côte d’Azur.

The Canaries: the native one

The Canary Island date palm, the one in every hotel garden on earth, is from here, and here it grows wild in the ravines. Tenerife at 28 degrees north is the surest winter sun in Europe. Guide to Tenerife.

And the rest

Mallorca’s Passeig Marítim and the cathedral square, Málaga’s Paseo del Parque with its 1897 botanical planting, Palermo’s squares, the terraces of Capri, Funchal’s gardens on Madeira. All on this map, all short haul, all with palms that have been there longer than the hotels.