Zarcero

The park in front of the church at Zarcero, Parque Francisco Alvarado, is a topiary garden: its shrubs have been clipped into arches and into animals, some of them quite abstract and bizarre, by Evangelista Blanco, who has made and tended them since the 1960s. Behind them stands the pink and blue church of San Rafael, built in 1895, whose building materials are not what they seem. The town lies in dairy and farming country, known for its brisk mountain climate.

Background

Zarcero, a district of the canton of the same name in Alajuela province, was made a city by a law of 24 July 1918. It covers 11.72 square kilometres at 1,736 metres in the Cordillera Central, some 50 kilometres north-west of the provincial capital, Alajuela, and 27 kilometres south-east of Ciudad Quesada. Its brisk mountain climate suits the dairy and farming country around it, where local businesses work organic farms and make jams, cheese and other dairy products.

Source: Wikipedia, "Zarcero"

What to look for

• The topiary arches - clipped shrubs over the paths of Parque Francisco Alvarado.
• The animal figures - some of them abstract and bizarre.
• The church of San Rafael - pink and blue, built in 1895.
• The highland setting - dairy country at 1,700 metres.

When to go

Year-round. The climate at this height is brisk.

Things to know

The topiary is the work of one gardener over decades, and what the figures stand for is not always obvious: some of the shapes are abstract and bizarre.

Nearby

Ciudad Quesada lies 27 km to the north-west, and the provincial capital, Alajuela, 50 km to the south-east.