As all you followers of our blog already know, last month 50 top riders took part in a day of breathtaking slope style expression sessions and amazing snowboarding displays at the Bond Sulayr Show 2012. The event was held to celebrate the opening of this season’s major attraction – the biggest halfpipe in Spain – at the Snowpark Sulayr in the Sierra Nevada. But what you didn’t know – until now of course – is that VIVA’s own resident photographer, Jorge Morales, got up bright and early on Saturday, 28 January, to capture it all especially for you... Here are just a few of our all-time favourite images. So just sit back and enjoy!

If marriages are made in heaven, then there’s no more heavenly place to tie the knot than the Costa del Sol, as these captivating images by Marbella-based professional photographer Jorge Morales clearly show! For starters there’s the 300+ sunshine days a year, plus spectacularly romantic scenery and a plethora of glamorous hotels and chic eateries to hold the reception at. And with an average wedding in the UK costing, so they tell me, a hefty £21,000, it’s no surprise that so many British couples get married in Southern Spain. The parish churches of Marbella and Mijas – not to mention Benalmádena’s Bil-Bil castle – are favourite choices for a wedding or blessing, while many happy couples follow John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s example by simply nipping over the border to Gibraltar for the nuptials.

If you shut your eyes tight and imagine a traditional white village in the heart of the Andalusian countryside, the image you’ll conjure up will probably bear an uncanny resemblance to Zahara de la Sierra. Certainly it has all the quintessential ingredients – the neat sugar cube houses, colourful geranium-strewn balconies, ancient churches, steep cobbled streets winding their way ever upward… And yet, declared a ‘Historic Artistic Place’ in 1983, Zahara has more, much more besides. Sheer, vertical cliffs – crowned both with the ruins of a 13th century Moorish castle and the Torre del Homenaje dating from the 15th century – form a dramatic backdrop to the sleepy little village of just 1,500 inhabitants, while the still blue waters of the lake that stretches out beneath it lend Zahara something of an Alpine feel. And, perhaps surprisingly given its diminutive size, there’s plenty of sights to see and things to do in the village itself, which is also the perfect base from which to explore the Sierra de Grazalema nature park as well as the grand Andalusian cities of Sevilla, Jerez, Cádiz and Ronda. It might be less than a 90-minute drive from Marbella, but it’s a world apart.

What originally started life as a private garden in 19th century Málaga, has grown into one of Europe’s most stunning of Botanical Gardens, with more than 1,000 different plant species from every corner of the globe. A Garden of Eden extending across 57 breathtaking acres, the La Concepción Historical-Botanical Gardens have been open to the public since 1994 and on a hot summer’s day – with shady tree-lined walks, splashing waterfalls and ornamental ponds – it’s the perfect place to chill out and relax.

An urban jungle of the most surprising and unexpectedly beautiful kind, Bioparc (formerly Fuengirola Zoo) is right in the very centre of town. A benchmark immersion zoo, with barriers virtually invisible to the naked eye, this careful recreation of the tropical forests of Madagascar, Equatorial Africa and Southeast Asia is home to 1,300 animals of around 140 different species… and the very newest arrivals are a pair of rare White Tigers. In July and August, Bioparc stays open until midnight, so you can get up close and personal with nocturnal creatures, too.

From a ‘secret’ river in La Mairena, to the children’s candies traditionally eaten at Communion parties… to kick off with the first of our Images of the Week series, here’s photographer Jenny Axelson’s uniquely individual take on the Costa del Sol.