The World's Best Garden Holidays

Times: The World’s Best Garden Holidays

iWalk at May 5, 2008 in Travel News | 54 views

From Indian palaces to Brazilian rainforests, There are enough places waiting for your visit. Here is Julia Brookes’ tips about the world’s best garden holidays from the Times .

Amazon, Brazil

Gardeners’ World experts Tony Russell and David Hurrian will accompany Victoria Travel’s 14-night Amazonian Adventure cruise next February on the Fred. Olsen ship Boudicca.

The trip starts in Barbados and stops include Santarem, Parintins, Manaus, Alter de Chao and Boca de Valeria. Some outside cabins are still available for £1,953, including flights.

Details: 0800 0911629, www.cruise.co.uk

Northern India

The Mogul emperors of the 16th and 17th centuries left gardens built as part of tombs, palaces and camps all over northern India. The sites typically feature canals, fountains and pools, with an emphasis on geometry. TransIndus’s 13-day escorted tour in November, led by the gardening writer and photographer Erica Hunningher, includes a visit to Rashtrapati Bhawan, Roshanara Bagh and Lodhi gardens in Delhi, the gardens of the Taj Mahal (at dawn) and Mehtab gardens in Agra. It costs £2,445pp full board, including flights.

Details: 020-8566 2729, www.transindus.com

Bowood Gardens, Wiltshire

Almost every era of English garden design - from the Georgian period onwards - is covered at Bowood Gardens, near Calne. The designer Capability Brown mapped out Bowood’s Great Park in the 1760s, and rock landscapes, cascades and grottoes, a hermit’s cave and a lakeside Doric temple are among the attractions. A woodland garden bursts into life for a six-week flowering season from May until early June. Stay overnight on the estate in Queenwood Lodge (sleeping up to eight) from £1,275 a night.

Details: 01249 822228, www.bowood.org

La Rogaia, Umbria

If you prefer reaping to sowing, you can pick olives for your own olive oil. Guests at La Rogaia can pick as much as they want during a week’s stay during the November harvest. Visitors need to be reasonably fit - it can be exhausting work. Half of the olives you collect are yours and will be pressed for oil. Stay in self-catering apartments near by and enjoy a traditional rinfresco, an informal dinner, on the final evening. Prices start at £220pp per week in a double room with shared bathroom.

Details: 00 39 075 845457, www.rogaia.com

Northumberland

The county’s beauty is on display in Boxwood’s horticultural tour, which starts in Newcastle and runs from September 8-12. It includes visits to the country house of Whalton Manor, designed by Edwin Lutyens; Bide-a-wee, a small informal garden created in a disused sandstone quarry; and the Elizabethan topiary garden at Chillingham Castle, family home of the Earls of Grey for 800 years. There is also a trip to Holy Island, Lindisfarne castle and Alnwick castle. The tour costs £1,195pp.

Details: 01341 241717, www.boxwoodtours.co.uk

Mount Nelson Hotel, Cape Town

A visit to a new worm farm - home to 240,000 worms - is among highlights of monthly morning garden walks around the city sanctuary at the Mount Nelson. Within the estate there are more than 100 species of indigenous and exotic trees, including 57 palm trees lining the main entrance. The garden tour, led by the hotel’s resident horticulturist, ends with morning tea (£6) in the hotel’s lounge. Superior double rooms at the hotel start at £272, including breakfast.

Details: 0845 0772222, www.mountnelson.co.za

Latvia

The garden tours specialist Brightwater has a five-night trip starting in Riga and including trips to the National Botanic Garden at Salaspils, the largest in the Baltic states, and Rundale Palace, one of the finest Baroque and Rococo monuments in the region. Spend two nights at Birini Castle and Manor, with a private tour of the castle and its gardens. Tours start on July 1 and August 26 and cost from £695pp.

Details: 01334 657155, www.brightwaterholidays.com

Woolley Grange, Wiltshire

Is there a budding Alan Titchmarsh among your brood? Woolley Grange’s fifth annual junior gardening week from May 11-16 includes decorating and planting a flower pot, garden walks with the hotel’s head gardener, a sunflower-growing competition and story time in the garden. The room rate is from £225 a night, half board, and includes all activities. Children stay free of charge when sharing their parents’ room.

Details: 01225 864705, www.luxuryfamilyhotels.co.uk

Giverny, France

One of Europe’s most popular gardens, Monet’s creation at Giverny is unlike any formal French garden, with blooms tumbling on to gravel paths. Peter Deilmann’s seven-night River Seine cruise on May 31 starts in Paris and includes visits to the rose garden of the Bois de Boulogne and the gardens of the Palais Royal, as well as trips to the park and vegetable gardens of the Château de Galleville in Doudeville and private gardens in Rouen. Prices start at £915pp cruise only, full board.

Details: 020-7436 2931, www.deilmann.co.uk

Neapolitan riviera and Amalfi coast

The seed supplier Seeds of Italy runs an eight-day garden tour that includes the island of Ischia and La Mortella, widely considered to be the country’s most beautiful garden. Bask in the tranquil gardens of Villa Rufolo and Villa Cimbrone in Ravello and visit the Minerva garden in Salerno, created in the 14th century and the first botanical garden in Europe to cultivate plants for therapeutic use. The next tour will leave on October 3 and will cost £1,140pp.

Details: 020-8427 5020, www.seedsofitaly.com

Stourhead, Wiltshire

If you would rather get your hands dirty than stand around admiring gardens, from July 12-19, you could help the National Trust to prepare Stourhead’s famous 18-century landscape garden for the Fête Champêtre, an event that attracts up to 10,000 people over two nights. As well as helping set up the event, general gardening tasks include clearing undergrowth from the islands on the lake and roping off delicate shrubs. It costs £95pp full board (you cook the meals yourself) in a Trust base camp. The National Trust also has working gardening holidays at Ickworth in Suffolk and Sissinghurst in Kent this summer.

Details: 0844 8003099, www.nationaltrust.org.uk

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