Site Map
The Santa Catalina Botanical Garden offers visitors a wide range of possibilities for their visit. All the routes start at the bottom of the valley and through them you can visit the three climatic zones, the ruins of the convent, the butterfly oasis, the wishing tree, the Starlight zone or the permanent exhibition of bonsais.
The Garden covers an area of 4 hectares, so to fully enjoy your visit it is necessary to purchase your ticket at least an hour and a half before closing time.
How to find us
The Botanical Garden of Santa Catalina is located in the ruins of the palace-convent of the same name, halfway up the south-eastern slope of the Sierra de Badaia, some 500 metres from the town of Trespuentes, 5 km from Nanclares de la Oca and 12 km from Vitoria-Gasteiz, in the province of Álava.
The site, which belongs to the Town Council of Iruña de Oca and is part of the Cuadrilla de Añana, covers an area of 32,500 m² of land with a maximum altitude of 675 metres and a minimum of 605 metres.
Parking
The site has three car parks and bike racks at the ticket office.
Capacity : 100 cars
Distance to ticket office: 1300 m
Slope: 106m
Slope: 8,2%.
Approximate walking time: 45 min
Capacity : 10 cars
Distance to ticket office: 800 m
Slope: 77m
Slope: 9.6%.
Approximate walking time: 25 min
Capacity : 50 cars
Distance to ticket office: 200 m
Slope: 26m
Slope: 12%.
Approximate walking time: 5 min
Visit our garden
Guided tours
The general guided tour takes you through the most interesting parts of the garden: conifers, ponds, succulent, aromatic and medicinal plants… The ruins are also shown and the history of the former convent is narrated.
School visits
The Garden offers schools the possibility of making visits during school hours. During these visits, a guide shows schoolchildren around the Garden and explains its natural, historical and social values.
Dramatised tours
Also noteworthy are the dramatised visits for children, starring the characters from the comic strip ‘El Jardín de las Mariposas’ (The Butterfly Garden), whose action takes place in the Garden itself. Guided by the ladybird Catalina and accompanied by amusing characters such as the druid Romanix, the butterfly Vanessa and the evil Velutino wasp, they provide an excellent opportunity for the little ones to discover in a different and attractive way what life is like in Santa Catalina, its exciting history and the nearly one thousand varieties of flowers and plants from the five continents that it houses.
Book your space
A place open to all
Social inclusion
For eight years, the Anti-AIDS Commission of Alava (SIDALAVA) has taken over the management of the Garden through a collaboration agreement with the Iruña de Oca Town Council. During this period, the Garden has become not only a tourist resource, but also a tool for the training and social and labour reinsertion of almost 100 people in situations of social vulnerability, who have found in Santa Catalina a space for workshops, courses and different tasks that have allowed them to reincorporate into the labour market.
Visitors with functional diversity
Iruña de Oca Town Council has launched a project to make the whole of the Garden accessible to people with any kind of functional diversity.
Regulations
Rules of conduct
A botanical garden is a green museum with a large collection of living plants where you can learn about the plant world and enjoy its great biodiversity. We must not forget that what we are observing are living beings that we must respect and take care of. For this reason, we must understand a series of rules before visiting.