Best gardens and parks in Europe

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Europe has been shaping its landscapes deliberately for a long time, and the range of what counts as a garden here is wider than anywhere else. Baroque palace grounds laid out to project political power, English landscape gardens designed to look uncontrived, Islamic courtyard gardens built around water and shade, hillside terraces on Italian lakes that have been cultivated for centuries. The traditions are distinct and often in quiet conversation with each other across borders.

Many of the destinations on this page are attached to larger historic sites – palaces, villas, châteaux – and the gardens were always part of the statement. But Europe also has serious botanical institutions, urban parks that function as genuine public space, and a few places that are harder to categorise. The diversity of climate across the continent means the plant life shifts considerably as you move between regions.

Timing varies more than people expect. The tulip season in the Netherlands, cherry blossom in some of the cooler northern gardens, the summer fountain displays at Peterhof. A lot of these destinations have a window when they're at their best, and it's worth knowing what that is before you go.