A garden is only worth the trip in its own three weeks.
Which week the Keukenhof beds actually peak. What a Versailles gardens ticket costs on a fountain day. Whether the Generalife needs its own slot. Reviews of the garden tours you can book, wherever they flower.
Four gardens people build a whole trip around: Versailles, Keukenhof, Giverny, the Generalife.
The garden tickets that sell out first, what each one costs, and the week to take it in.
01The parterresVersailles Palace and Gardens Full Access TicketLe Nôtre’s box scrollwork, the Grand Canal and the Orangery on one pass. The gardens open an hour before the palace does; walk them first.
02Peak bulb weekKeukenhof Entry & Shuttlebus with Flexible ReturnSeven million bulbs on eight weeks of opening. Mid-April is the fullest those beds ever look, and the shuttle from Amsterdam saves the hire car.
03Monet’s own gardenGiverny, Monet’s Home & Gardens Half-Day TripThe lily pond, the green bridge and the wisteria, ninety minutes from Paris. Closed from November until the start of April.
04Water and shadeAlhambra & Gardens Tour w/Nasrid Palaces OptionThe Generalife terraces above Granada, cut through with running water. The Nasrid Palaces need a separate timed slot, gone weeks ahead.
Six countries that garden on a scale worth flying for.
Formal French parterres, a Dutch bulb season eight weeks long, Japanese moss and gravel, Moorish water courtyards, Italian cypress terraces and American glasshouses the size of a hangar. Six places to start, and the best day out in each.
Three French garden days, and the one you book first.
Nowhere else keeps this many gardens in this small a radius. A palace parterre in the morning, a painter’s pond after lunch, and a lavender plateau three hours south when the season lines up.
Palace gardens: the ticket that gets you past the state rooms.
Half of these palaces are visited for their interiors and remembered for their grounds. Versailles, Schönbrunn, the Alhambra, Boboli: the gardens carry their own entry, their own hours and, usually, their own queue.
Garden seasons are short. Here is when each one opens.
Bulbs, blossom and lavender each run for about three weeks, and every one of them moves with the weather. Book the flight around the flower, not the other way round.
Tulips
Late March – mid-May
Keukenhof opens for eight weeks only; the fields outside it colour up a fortnight later than the beds inside.
from $12
Cherry blossom
Late March – mid-April
Full bloom lasts about a week and is called a few days out. Tokyo goes first, the mountains a fortnight behind.
from $59
Lavender
Late June – early August
Valensole is cut in the first days of August. Arrive after the harvest and the plateau is stubble.
from $9
Glasshouses
All year
Orchid houses and palm houses are heated, indoors and immune to the forecast. The winter answer.
from $5
Keukenhof is eight weeks long and everyone comes in the same one.
The park opens around the third week of March and closes in the second week of May. Beds inside peak in mid-April; the commercial fields around Lisse run a week or two behind, and a shuttle ticket out of Amsterdam beats parking at the gate.
Every Dutch garden day →
The garden tours more people book than any others.
Every garden tour we have reviewed →The gardens that carry the most visitors on earth, and what earns each of them the slot.
1
Versailles Palace and Gardens Full Access Ticket
Spend a full day at Versailles with timed palace entry and access to the gardens, Grand and Petit Trianon, and Marie Antoinette’s Estate. Explore at your own pace, use the seasonal Musical Gardens or Fountain Show option, and download an audio guide if your voucher includes one.
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
Versailles Palace & Gardens with Transportation
from $53
8
Skip-the-Line Schönbrunn Palace & Gardens Tour
from $76
Japanese gardens are read slowly, and they change with the month.
Raked gravel and clipped azalea in Kyoto, ponds built to be walked around in Tokyo, maples that turn the whole thing red in November. Most of the great ones sit inside a temple and close by five.
- 1Imperial Palace East Garden and Edo Castle Walking Tour in Tokyofrom $25
- 2Kyoto Zen Meditation & Garden Tour at a Zen Temple with Lunchfrom $110
- 3Kyoto Arashiyama Bamboo forest & Garden Half-Day Walking Tourfrom $129
What a day in the gardens actually costs.
Every garden tour on the site, grouped by price. Plenty of the best ones are an entry ticket and an afternoon.
Entry tickets, glasshouse admissions, city park walks and the shuttle-and-ticket bundles.
The half-day runs out of a capital: Giverny, Versailles with transport, Keukenhof with a guide.
Private garden days, lavender plateaus by car and the ferry-and-garden combinations.
Three gardens that exist nowhere else.
Municipal rose beds are everywhere. A painter’s pond built as a subject, a Nasrid water staircase and a cobalt-blue villa garden in a medina are not.
Monet’s Water Garden
Monet diverted a branch of the Epte to fill it, planted the banks for colour through the season and built the Japanese bridge to look at, not to cross. The lilies open through the morning and close in the afternoon heat, which is why the coach parties who arrive at two see a different pond from the one in the paintings. Open April to the start of November, and no longer.
- 1Giverny, Monet’s Home & Gardens Half-Day Trip★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 2,887 reviews
- 2Giverny Day Trip with Audio Guide or Live Guide★★★★★★★★★★ 4.3 · 2,372 reviews
- 3Versailles Palace and Giverny Monet House Visit with Lunch★★★★★★★★★★ 4.0 · 1,948 reviews
The Generalife
The summer palace above the Alhambra is a garden with rooms: a long court split by a channel of jets, hedges cut into corridors, and a staircase with water running down the handrails. Everything moves downhill under its own weight, on a fourteenth-century gradient that still works. The Nasrid Palaces below carry a separate half-hour slot.
- 1Alhambra & Gardens Tour w/Nasrid Palaces Option★★★★★★★★★★ 4.2 · 7,022 reviews
- 2Alhambra Guided Tour with Nasrid Palaces & Gardens★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 2,190 reviews
- 3Alhambra &Charles Palace Guided Tour with Optional Nasrid Palaces★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 2,149 reviews
The Jardin Majorelle
Jacques Majorelle spent forty years planting cacti and bamboo around a villa he painted a blue so particular it took his name, and Yves Saint Laurent bought the place to stop it being built on. It is small, it is loud with birds, and it is booked by timed ticket because the paths take about ninety people at a time.
- 1Majorelle Garden Entry Tickets★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 9,651 reviews
- 2Majorelle Garden, YSL, and Berber Museum Entry★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 5,168 reviews
- 3Ben Youssef, Secret Garden, & Souks Walking Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 2,802 reviews
Four garden bookings that will not wait for you.
Most gardens will sell you a ticket at the gate. These four run on a short season, a capped slot or a forecast, and they are all sold out by the time the flight lands.
- 01Keukenhof Entry & Shuttlebus with Flexible ReturnThe park opens for about eight weeks a year. Mid-April weekends sell their timed entries and shuttle seats weeks ahead.
- 02Alhambra & Gardens Tour w/Nasrid Palaces OptionEntry to the Nasrid Palaces is a half-hour slot with a hard cap, and it goes months out for spring dates.
- 03Giverny, Monet’s Home & Gardens Half-Day TripThe gardens are shut from the start of November to the start of April. Inside the season the half-day runs from Paris fill first.
- 04Mt. Fuji, Cherry Blossom & Shiba Sakura Pvt. Day TourFull bloom is announced days in advance and lasts about a week. The tours around it are sold before the forecast is published.
Gardens that work in the rain, and in February.
A palm house is twenty-five degrees in a hailstorm and the orchid houses flower hardest in winter. When the forecast collapses or the season has not started, the day moves indoors and stays a garden day.
By city — where you are staying
By kind of garden — formal, wild, glazed or in flower
Amsterdam, Lisse, Paris, Versailles, Giverny: the spring garden run.
Lisse
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