Travel
Top 25 Secret Gardens: Escape To These Hidden City Parks
Slide Nr 1You’re sharing the city streets with millions, so having a park bench to yourself isn’t too much to ask. For a tranquil oasis away from the masses, try this lesser-known city parks and gardens around the world.
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Top 25 Secret Gardens: Escape To These Hidden City Parks.
Slide Nr 2Rosengarten in Munich, Germany – The Bavarian capital is more famous for its English Garden, one of the largest urban parks in the world. The municipal rose garden is significantly smaller, but arguably more eclectic. It actually serves as a nursery for the city’s green spaces, featuring themed gardens, including the rose nursery that gives it its name, as well as a garden focused on fragrant flowers and one solely on poisonous plants. – FBR
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Top 25 Secret Gardens: Escape To These Hidden City Parks.
Slide Nr 3Comenius Garten in Berlin, Germany – Berlin may sometimes seem like an asphalt jungle, but there are actually 2,500 green spaces all over the city. Comenius Garten is a quaint jewel in uber-hip, but still decidedly seedy Neukölln. Founded as a private initiative, and to this day cared for by its founder and the local community, the garden provides a green sanctuary to residents of this ethnically and socially diverse area. – FBR [Photo: Jörg Kantel/Flickr]
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Top 25 Secret Gardens: Escape To These Hidden City Parks.
Slide Nr 4Dakpark in Rotterdam, Netherlands – This innovative park is hiding in plain sight, located off the beaten track in an area adjacent to what were once industrial docks. It arches over a shopping centre, both concealing and drawing attention to its urban nature. Although the angular design makes no secret of its constructedness, the strip of green and pops of colour add a welcome touch of nature to an otherwise utilitarian project. – FBR
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Top 25 Secret Gardens: Escape To These Hidden City Parks.
Slide Nr 5Iveagh Gardens in Dublin, Ireland – Dublin’s famous Georgian squares were once only accessible to residents of the surrounding houses. Today, they are open to the public, easy to find and highly frequented. Iveagh Gardens, located literally across the road from the unmissable St Stephen’s Green, is almost entirely surrounded by buildings, hard to find and accordingly quiet. – FBR [Photo: Michael Foley/Flickr]
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Top 25 Secret Gardens: Escape To These Hidden City Parks.
Slide Nr 6The Roof Gardens in Kensington, London, United Kingdom – There are beautiful parks and gardens – many of them hidden – all over London. Ask some locals and chances are, each person will be able to name a different favourite secret garden. Ours is the somewhat unexpected, slightly kitschy, lush heritage garden atop a former department store on Kensington High Street. – FBR
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Top 25 Secret Gardens: Escape To These Hidden City Parks.
Slide Nr 7Elizabeth Street Garden in New York, USA – This quirky community garden was founded on a vacant lot in Little Italy in 1991, when the owners of an adjacent art gallery started filling up the derelict site with their sculptures and plants. Of course that was before the gentrification of Lower Manhattan turned it into a highly desirable slice of real estate. Friends of the garden have been fighting to to protect the site against development. – FBR
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Top 25 Secret Gardens: Escape To These Hidden City Parks.
Slide Nr 8Privately Owned Public Spaces in San Francisco, USA – Instead of seeking out one hidden park or secret garden, why not take a tour of the privately owned public spaces (POPS) in downtown San Francisco? The city often demands the construction of such spaces as part of the planning permission, resulting in gardens, plazas, courtyards and rooftop spaces that are owned privately but open to the public by law. More often than not, POPS are a bit hidden, so use a map to sniff out your personal favourite. – FBR
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Top 25 Secret Gardens: Escape To These Hidden City Parks.
Slide Nr 9Westgate Park in Melbourne, Australia – Most of Australia’s pink lakes are in remote, outback locations, but time your visit right, and you could witness the natural phenomenon in this city park. The water only changes colour when conditions – a combination of high temperature, low water levels and high salinity – are just right to let the red algae in the lake work its magic. – FBR
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Top 25 Secret Gardens: Escape To These Hidden City Parks.
Slide Nr 10Wendy’s Secret Garden in Sydney, Australia – Wendy Whiteley’s garden is secret by name, but that secret has long been out. The widow of the late artist Brett Whiteley found her own artistic outlet in a patch of public land near her home in Lavender Bay, turning it into a flourishing garden, full of hidden treasures. Wendy’s Secret Garden also offers wonderful views of Harbour Bridge. – FBR [Photo: Happy days 09/Flickr]
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Top 25 Secret Gardens: Escape To These Hidden City Parks.
Slide Nr 11Barton Creek Greenbelt in Austin, USA – It’s no secret that Austin is home to some great spring-fed swimming holes, but if you want to make like a local, avoid the touristy spots and head to the Greenbelt. This 11.6km stretch of hiking trails runs along Barton Creek, full of shallow pools, miniature waterfalls and all kinds of ways to beat the Texas heat. – PF [Photo: Allan Besselink/Flickr]
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Top 25 Secret Gardens: Escape To These Hidden City Parks.
Slide Nr 12Cator Woolford Gardens in Atlanta, USA – These historic, 15-hectare woods and gardens were originally the property of Cator Woolford, a wealthy businessman. The extensive gardens here are famous for their flowers as well as a massive stone staircase leading to the estate’s courtyard. It’s free to visitors, and is a popular site for weddings. – PF
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Top 25 Secret Gardens: Escape To These Hidden City Parks.
Slide Nr 13The “Secret” Beaches of Vancouver, Canada – Vancouver is famous for its beaches, and rightly so: there are 18 kilometers worth of them within city limits. Next time the sun is shining, avoid the crowds and head for some of the lesser known beaches, like Bikini Beach, Iona Beach, and more. – PF [Photo: Province of British Columbia/Flickr]
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Top 25 Secret Gardens: Escape To These Hidden City Parks.
Slide Nr 14Toronto Sculpture Garden in Toronto, Canada – This small but lovely park hosts temporary modern sculpture installations, and it’s definitely worth a visit to check out what’s on display. There’s also a fountain in the park, which combined with the art makes it a nice place for a picnic in the middle of the city. – PF
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Top 25 Secret Gardens: Escape To These Hidden City Parks.
Slide Nr 15Viveros de Coyoacán in Mexico City, Mexico – This nursery is the source of many of the trees planted throughout the city, but it also happens to be a public park. It’s an excellent place to witness the rich biodiversity of this unique region of the world, and get a minute of quiet in the bustling metropolis. – PF
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Top 25 Secret Gardens: Escape To These Hidden City Parks.
Slide Nr 16Cerro Santa Lucía in Santiago, Chile – Hidden amidst Santiago’s chaotic downtown, on the remnants of a 15-million-year-old volcano, this verdant, hilly oasis is home to a 65,300sqm park equipped with fountains, trails, monuments and Castillo Hidalgo, a historic Spanish-style castle built in 1826. Cerro Santa Lucía hosts special events, like Ñam, the city’s most important annual gastronomic festival. – AL [Photo: Rodrigo Pizarro/Flickr]
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Top 25 Secret Gardens: Escape To These Hidden City Parks.
Slide Nr 17Jardín Andaluz, Museo de Arte Español Enrique Larreta in Buenos Aires, Argentina – Decades ago before it became a museum, neocolonial Museo de Arte Español Enrique Larreta was a hangout for Argentine socialites. Today, its perfectly pruned Jardín Andaluz garden makes for the ideal sanctuary from the city’s bustle. “It’s a place that truly surprises you,” says Madi Lang of BA Cultural Concierge, who shows travellers the city’s best kept secrets. “The secret garden is for strolling and smelling flowers, while the museum is filled with unique Spanish artifacts.” – AL
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Top 25 Secret Gardens: Escape To These Hidden City Parks.
Slide Nr 18Aviario Nacional de Colombia in Cartagena, Colombia – This secret birdwatcher’s paradise is located on Baru Island, only a short ride from the heart of tropical Cartagena. The National Aviary bird sanctuary stands on six acres of ecological reserve and is home to about 2,000 birds of 140 different species, like parrots, macaws, toucans, pink flamingos and the endangered Andean condor. The land is divided into several ecosystems, including a jungle rainforest and desert habitat. – AL
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Top 25 Secret Gardens: Escape To These Hidden City Parks.
Slide Nr 19Parque Burle Marx in São Paulo, Brazil – Perhaps one of the best-kept secrets in all of São Paulo, Burle Marx Park was created to improve the city’s air quality, reduce noise and preserve local flora and fauna. This land, which represents the Atlantic rainforest, stretches across 27 acres and was designed by Brazil’s most famous landscape architect, Roberto Burle Marx. It houses sculptures, lakes, hiking and jogging trails, and a two-tone lawn replicating a chessboard. – AL
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Top 25 Secret Gardens: Escape To These Hidden City Parks.
Slide Nr 20The Garden of the Royal Library in Copenhagen, Denmark – The Royal Library Garden constitutes a small oasis in the heart of the city right between the Danish Parliament and the Royal Library. Designed and built back in 1920 on top of Christian IV’s old naval port, Tøjhushavnen, nowadays the garden boasts blossoming flowerbeds and large, shady trees, with an eight-metre-high copper column sculpture that rises from the middle of the pool being the absolute highlight. – TK
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Top 25 Secret Gardens: Escape To These Hidden City Parks.
Slide Nr 21The Jardin Saint-Gilles-Grand-Veneur in Paris, France – Hidden within a maze of narrow streets, far from the massive crowds, stressful grind and noise of Paris, you’ll find a rarely visited but extremely beautiful haven of tranquility: the Jardin Saint-Gilles-Grand-Veneur. Next time you’re in Paris and are looking for a break from the big city, settle down on one of the stone benches in the lovely rose arbour that this serene refuge provides its few privileged guests. – TK [Photo: Pierre Nguyen (Thus0)/Flickr]
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Top 25 Secret Gardens: Escape To These Hidden City Parks.
Slide Nr 22Pasona O2 in Tokyo, Japan – Located beneath an office block near Tokyo Station, Pasona O2 has been described by experts as the “farm of the future”, occupying a little over 900sqm in six separate rooms and was created by the Pasona Group, a human resources company. Pasona O2, other than being a quiet green sanctuary hiding right below the crowded downtown area of Tokyo, promises to introduce the benefits of farming to busy urbanites and help them reconsider the way they view the environment. – TK
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Top 25 Secret Gardens: Escape To These Hidden City Parks.
Slide Nr 23Tromsø Arctic-Alpine Botanic Garden in Tromsø, Norway – The Arctic-Alpine Botanic Garden in Tromsø, Norway, is the world’s northernmost botanic garden with Arctic, Antarctic and Alpine plants from every continent on earth. The impressive garden is open all year, free to enter, and in it you can find not one, not two, but an astonishing 25 collections of species from all over the world. It’s an extraordinary selection of species, which you’d have a hard time finding elsewhere all in one place, and that alone makes this garden as unique as it gets. – TK [Photo: Harald Groven/Flickr]
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Top 25 Secret Gardens: Escape To These Hidden City Parks.
Slide Nr 24Botanical Garden of the University of Pisa, Italy – Founded in 1544, the oldest botanical garden in the world is an oasis of calm minutes away from the Leaning Tower. One of the city’s few fresh places in the summer, it contains the old botany institute, with a façade decorated with thousands of sea-shells. Featuring a Mediterranean herbal garden, a bamboo grove and a pond with water lilies, it makes for a perfect afternoon away from the crowds. – LF
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Top 25 Secret Gardens: Escape To These Hidden City Parks.
Slide Nr 25Gardens of the Villa d’Este in Tivoli (Rome), Italy – When in Rome… skip Villa Borghese and hop on a train. The 35,000 sqm Renaissance terraced gardens of the 16th-century Villa d’Este in Tivoli, one hour away from the Italian capital, are well worth a visit. The UNESCO World Heritage site features a great number of fountains, waterfalls and grottos, and even a hydraulic organ playing every two hours (from 10:30 to 18:30). – LF [Photo: Dmitry Dzhus/Flickr]
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Top 25 Secret Gardens: Escape To These Hidden City Parks.
Slide Nr 26Adashino Nenbutsu-Ji Temple in Kyoto, Japan – Have you ever seen the stunning stairway path in the bamboo forest featured on the cover of many Kyoto travel guides? Few know that it’s located inside this small Buddhist temple on the outskirts of the city, tucked away off the beaten track of Arashiyama. Once there, don’t miss out on ToYu, an award-winning handmade ceramics store located a few metres away from the temple’s entrance. – LF [Photo: Travel Stock Photos/Flickr]
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Top 25 Secret Gardens: Escape To These Hidden City Parks.
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