Best City Parks In Europe

It’s a curious paradox: escaping the city during a European city break. But resting blistered feet in the leafy coolness of a local park after a hectic morning of museum-hopping is a quintessential part of the experience. Funny how we make pilgrimages to the West’s cultural icons such as the Trevi Fountain and the Louvre – but then remember with equal fondness a gelato nursed under a chestnut tree afterwards.
1. Augarten, ViennaThe park: It certainly covers a lot of ground. Where else would baroque manicured box trees open a view to a massive concrete air defence tower from the Second World War? Where else could you admire fine porcelain just after coming out of a fragrant lime grove? Vienna’s oldest baroque garden, just 15 minutes’ walk from the centre, is a natural habitat for historians, nature lovers, music aficionados, and cineastes.
2. Retiro, MadridThe park: Originally the gardens of a royal palace, the Retiro is now Madrid’s main playground and is particularly popular with locals on Sunday mornings. Take a rowing boat out on the lake, which is dominated by a statue of Alfonso XII. The monument has just opened to the public, so you can go up to the top for panoramic views (free but reservation required; reservaspatrimonio.es). Don’t miss the Rosaleda rose garden, with more than 4,000 bushes in flower until early July, or the Versailles-inspired parterre.
3. Vondelpark, AmsterdamThe Park: Nicknamed ‘Amsterdam’s Green Lung’, the Vondelpark is indeed lung-shaped, and constantly on the move – from the children’s playgrounds and tennis club, to joggers’ highways and a 1930s café that resembles a grounded flying saucer. Laid out in the mid-19th century in the highly fashionable English style, the 120-acre park also has green nooks aplenty, an elegant rose garden, a lake with a no-humans wild patch, and even a meadow with a neglected sculpture by Picasso. This is where Amsterdam flocks and flops out on hot summer days.
4. Monsanto Forest Park, LisbonThe park: For a gargantuan gulp of arboreal air and the chance to shake off the city streets, head to this tranquil green stretch on a re-forested hillside in the Boavista neighbourhood. The park stretches over six square miles of verdant, vegetative lushness. Pack sarnies and some of the sparkly stuff: panoramic picnic spots looking out over the Portuguese capital and the Rio Tejo abound. To get there, stroll along the ‘Green The highlights: For sporty types, Monsanto offers an adventurous maze of hiking trails and bike tracks.
5. Tiergarten, BerlinThe park: Although the largest, most central and arguably most obvious park to choose, Berlin’s Tiergarten has it all, from historical monuments and cultural institutions to art installations and picturesque beer gardens. Once a wild forest and hunting reserve for the Kaiser, it was transformed into a landscaped park by famed architect Peter Joseph Lennéin the 1800s.
6. Letná Park, PragueThe park: Rising above the city to the north of the picturesque Vltava river and extending to the east of the Mala Strana neighbourhood and Prague Castle, pretty Letná Park is a wonderful place for active exploration or sunny relaxation.architecture.
7. Parc de la Ciutadella, BarcelonaThe park: Created in the 18th century to replace the hated citadel (ciutadella) of Philip V, this is now one of Barcelona’s best loved spaces; an elegant but lively park with acres of grassland, and a picturesque boating lake at its heart.
8. Jardin du Luxembourg, ParisThe park: The Luxembourg Gardens, created in the early 17th century to accompany Marie de’ Medic’s Renaissance palace (now the French Senate) is known for its central sunken parterre and picturesque plane-tree-lined avenues, but it’s not all ornamental. In summer you’ll find busy tennis courts; very serious pétanque games played by regulars; basketball and even bee hives.
9. Villa Borghese, RomeThe park: With immense foresight, Rome’s council snapped up this peri-urban estate of the debt-saddled Borghese dynasty and opened it as a public park in 1903. At nearly 200 acres, this is the city’s third-largest park, retaining all the hallmarks of a nobleman’s property. It’s slightly scuffed but wholly charming: statues, a boating lake, aviaries, fake temples and shady promenades. The view from the Pincio balcony towards the dome of St Peter’s is second to none, and a paddle round the little lake is quaintly pleasurable.
10. Parco di Villa Groggia, VeniceThe park: In this city, with its intriguing glimpses of private gardens concealed behind high walls, municipal green space is often a dusty afterthought. Parco di Villa Groggia, in Venice’s far northern reaches, is an utterly charming exception. Hemmed in between palazzi in the Cannaregio district, this lush space with its huge hackberry trees and pillar-box-red benches is a haven of birdsong and chirping children who play around quaint ‘ruins’ erected in the 18th century – a Venetian take on the English garden style.