A garden is only itself for a few weeks a year.
When Keukenhof actually opens. What the Versailles gardens cost without the palace queue. Whether the Provence lavender is still standing in August. Reviews of the garden visits you can book, wherever they grow.
Five gardens that decide when the trip happens.
Each one is worth building a week around, and four of the five have a season that closes behind you. What they cost and what people who went say.
01The big parterreVersailles Palace and Gardens Full Access TicketLe Nôtre laid out 800 hectares to be read from the palace steps. The gardens ticket is separate from the palace, and far cheaper.
02Eight weeks flatKeukenhof Entry & Shuttlebus with Flexible ReturnSeven million bulbs, planted by hand in autumn for a spring that ends in mid May. Book the shuttle with the ticket or you queue twice.
03Cobalt and cactusMajorelle Garden Entry TicketsMajorelle painted the walls that blue in the 1930s and planted the beds against it. Small, shaded, and busiest in the first hour.
04Habsburg symmetrySchönbrunn Palace & Gardens Skip-the-Line TourThe parterre runs uphill from the palace to the Gloriette, and the gardens themselves cost nothing. The ticket buys you the state rooms.
05Provence in JulyGorges of Verdon and Fields of Lavender TourThe Valensole rows are cut from mid July. Come a fortnight late and you are photographing stubble.
Six countries that plant on a scale worth travelling for.
Château parterres and lavender in France, eight weeks of bulbs in the Netherlands, Renaissance water gardens in Italy, Moorish courtyards in Spain, moss and maples in Japan, and a tidal basin of cherry trees in the USA.
Three French gardens, three completely different afternoons.
The formal château parterre, a field of lavender in the Luberon, and one painter’s pond in Normandy. What it costs to get through each gate, and when each one is worth the trip.
The garden visits more travellers book than any other.
Every garden review on the site →Palace parterres, a bulb field with its own shuttle bus, and a blue courtyard in Marrakech. The order comes from the travellers, not from us.
1
Versailles Palace and Gardens Full Access Ticket
Book a timed entry to Versailles Palace, then explore the State Apartments, Hall of Mirrors, gardens, Grand and Petit Trianon, and Marie Antoinette’s Estate at your own pace. The $17 ticket lasts one day and includes seasonal Musical Gardens or Fountain Show access from April through October. Bring ID, good shoes, and several hours.
From · $17
Read our review →
2
Keukenhof Entry & Shuttlebus with Flexible Return
from $41
3
Skip-the-Line Tour of Palace and Gardens Access
from $76
4
Majorelle Garden Entry Tickets
from $31
5
Schönbrunn Palace & Gardens Skip-the-Line Tour
from $63
6
Alhambra & Gardens Tour w/Nasrid Palaces Option
from $35
7
Skip-the-Line Schönbrunn Palace & Gardens Tour
from $76
8
Reserved Entry Ticket to the Boboli Gardens
from $13
Four gardens that are only themselves for a fortnight.
Most travel constraints are about weather or opening hours. Gardens run on something harder: a plant decides, the date moves every year, and the season does not wait for your flight.
- 01Keukenhof Entry & Shuttlebus with Flexible ReturnThe park opens for roughly eight weeks from late March and then closes completely. There is no bulb field to visit in June.
- 02Gorges of Verdon and Fields of Lavender TourProvence cuts the rows from mid July. Arrive in August and the famous purple corduroy is stubble and dust.
- 03Mt. Fuji, Cherry Blossom & Shiba Sakura Pvt. Day TourPeak bloom lasts a few days and shifts with the winter. The date is announced weeks ahead, not months.
- 04Miracle Garden Entry Ticket with Hotel TransferDubai plants for the cool half of the year and shuts the whole site through the summer. The beds cannot survive a Gulf August.
The grandest beds in Europe were all laid out to be looked down on.
Versailles, the Generalife, Boboli, Schönbrunn, Caserta. Each was designed to be read from an upstairs window, which is why the pattern only makes sense once you are standing in it.
- 1Alhambra & Gardens Tour w/Nasrid Palaces Optionfrom $35
- 2Reserved Entry Ticket to the Boboli Gardensfrom $13
- 3Alhambra Gardens and Generalife Ticketfrom $20
A botanic garden is the one that works in February.
Kew’s palm house, the orchid house in Singapore, a dragon tree on Tenerife older than the town around it. Collections are planted to be interesting every week of the year, which is the whole point of them.
Every botanic garden →
What a morning in a garden actually costs.
Every visit on the site, grouped by price. The gate is usually the cheap part; the transport and the guide are what move the number.
Entry tickets, city botanic gardens, orchid houses and the gardens-only ticket at a palace.
The day out with transport: Keukenhof by coach, Giverny from Paris, Nami Island from Seoul.
Private guides, small-group Provence days and the garden-to-table lunches that make an afternoon of it.
Three gardens with no equivalent anywhere else.
Plenty of cities have a good botanic garden. A country that replants seven million bulbs every autumn, a desert that grows flowers in winter and one painter’s pond are not repeatable.
Keukenhof and the bulb fields
The park sits on the old hunting grounds at Lisse and exists to show off the Dutch bulb trade. Everything is lifted and replanted by hand each autumn, so nothing is ever two years old. The commercial fields around it flower slightly earlier and are cut for the bulb, not the flower, which is why the colour vanishes from the roadside long before the park closes.
- 1Keukenhof Entry & Shuttlebus with Flexible Return★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 11,891 reviews
- 2Tour to Keukenhof Gardens with Windmill Cruise★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 2,819 reviews
- 3Keukenhof Gardens Ticket and Transfer★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 2,741 reviews
Dubai Miracle Garden
Fifty million flowers arranged into arches, clocks and a full-size aircraft, watered from recycled supply and laid out on ground that grows nothing on its own. It runs from about November to May and then shuts entirely. Go in the first hour or the last; the middle of the day is a car park with flowers in it.
- 1Mt. Seorak+Nami Island+Garden of Morning Calm Day Trip from Seoul★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 959 reviews
- 2Miracle Garden Entry Ticket with Hotel Transfer★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 833 reviews
- 3Skip-The-Line Ticket to Dubai Miracle Garden★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 452 reviews
Monet at Giverny
Monet bought the house in 1890 and spent the rest of his life planting the view he wanted to paint, including a water garden he had to petition the local council to flood. The Japanese bridge and the wisteria are the ones everyone photographs; the walled flower garden in front of the house is the part that changes most between April and October.
- 1Giverny, Monet’s Home & Gardens Half-Day Trip★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 2,887 reviews
- 2Giverny Monet’s Home and Gardens Half Day Tour from Paris★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 1,836 reviews
- 3Guided Day Trip to Monet’s Garden in Giverny★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 751 reviews
Blossom is the only garden season people book flights for.
Japan, Korea and the Washington tidal basin all get a few days of it, all on dates nobody can promise in advance. The trips below are the ones that still work if the trees come early.
The beds are bare from November. These are not.
A glasshouse, an orchid collection or a butterfly dome is warm and in flower in the middle of winter, and a Moorish courtyard or a clipped parterre was designed around structure rather than bloom, so it reads perfectly well in the rain.
Gardens run on a calendar. Here is the one worth planning against.
SakuraThe newest garden reviews.
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Hanover: Royal Gardens of Herrenhausen Guided Tour
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Skip-the-Line Versailles Palace and Gardens Tour
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Guided Tour to the Royal Palace of Caserta: discover the Royal Palace and gardens
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Green Rio: Guided Tour of Botanical Garden and Lage Park
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