Fancy sitting on a beach in the warm December sunshine, eating a prawn and mango salad and drinking locally made rum? The Costa Tropical, in the province of Granada in southern Spain, is a coastline of coves and Moorish watchtowers where a quirk of climate means that dense groves of mangos, avocados, custard apples, bananas and other exotic crops flank the Mediterranean. Or base yourself in Almuñécar, where a Roman fish-salting factory is now part of the lush El Majuelo botanic garden. Elche boasts more than 200,000 date palm trees Credit: GETTYEasyJet (easyjet.com) and British Airways (ba.com) fly to Malaga, Granada and Almería. Stay at the elegant, 19th-century Casa de los Bates (casadelosbates.com) near Salobreña and help yourself to tropical fruit from the garden.

Source: The North Africa Journal January 11, 2019 06:00 UTC