A glass building in the middle of Icod de los Vinos. You push open the door and step into a miniature tropical forest: 30°C, 80% humidity, soft music, and 800 butterflies from 150 species flying freely around you. Blue Morpho butterflies from Costa Rica, transparent-winged Hibiscus butterflies from Southeast Asia, giant Atlas butterflies with 30 cm wingspans. Open since June 1997, the Mariposario del Drago is Spain's first center dedicated to butterflies — and it remains one of the best.
The garden is small — you can walk around it in 10 minutes if you hurry. But that would be missing everything. The idea is to slow down, to stop, to let the butterflies come to you. Wear colorful clothes (especially red and yellow) and they'll land on you — children become statues for the first time in their lives. The breeding laboratory, visible through a glass panel, shows chrysalises at different stages of development. Chrysalises arrive from the Philippines, Malaysia, Costa Rica, Belize and Kenya, bred in captivity (never captured from the wild). With luck, you'll witness a butterfly emerging — its first flight, wings still wet, right before your eyes.
The two parrots that live in the garden (no, they don't eat the butterflies — guides answer this question 50 times a day). The fish in the pools between tropical plants. The tortoises wandering on the ground between visitors' feet. And above all: the plants. Bali, Costa Rica, Thailand — dozens of rare tropical species imported because each butterfly species needs its specific host plant to lay eggs and feed its caterpillars. The botanical garden is almost as interesting as the butterflies themselves.