The Garden Path

What is now known as the Pond Garden was a fish farm in medieval times — Hampton Court Palace, Surrey, England. Photos by Yvonne Michie Horn

Every year, thousands of people from all over the world make their way to England’s Hampton Court Palace. So it has been since Queen Victoria threw open the palace’s gilded gates to the general public in 1838.

With the palace located just a short train ride from central London, today’s visitors come to traipse through the 500 years of English history embedded in the some-1,000-room royal abode.

Built by Cardinal Wolsey in the early 16th century, Hampton Court...

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Entrance courtyard of the Valtice château. Photos by Yvonne Michie Horn

Two magnificent châteaux bookend what is known today as the Lednice-Valtice Cultural Landscape in the South Moravian Region of the Czech Republic.

From 1249 until events surrounding World War II resulted in its confiscation, the Cultural Landscape’s 100-plus square miles belonged to Liechtenstein, the tiny, 62-square-mile principality now sandwiched between Austria and Switzerland.

Between the 17th and 20th centuries, the Dukes of Liechtenstein set about transforming the...

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Parterres edged with hedges. Photos by Yvonne Michie Horn

Hands down, Edinburgh’s Royal Mile wins as the city’s most visitor-trod street. And well it should be. To walk its length is to follow in the footsteps — most likely the carriage rumblings — of the kings and queens who for five centuries made the journey between the formidable castle-fortress that dominates the Old Town skyline to Holyrood Palace.

Since the 16th century, Holyrood has served as the Scots’ official royal residence. Today, Queen Elizabeth...

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The “Italianette-style” addition at the entrance to the garden. Photo courtesy of Tresco Abbey Garden

In the early-morning light of May 2018, Grand Circle Cruise Line’s M/V Corinthian dropped anchor off Tresco in the Isles of Scilly archipelago. (See my article “Maritime Jewels — Cruising the British Isles & Ireland” in the October 2018 issue.)

Once the landing platform was launched, the ship’s tender sped off toward Tresco on a mission to fetch Mike Nelhams, curator of the island’s near-subtropical Abbey Garden that we’d come to see....

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View of the pond in the Wallenstein Gardens — Prague. Photos by Yvonne Michie Horn

I've long thought that the best city transportation is a pair of comfortable shoes. That was certainly true of Prague, a most walkable city, allowing me to hotfoot it through its historic Old Town Square, pushing my way through pretzel hawkers and throngs following umbrella-toting tour guides and past bike bars pedal-powered by beer guzzlers. I was on my way this May 2018 day to a Prague of serenity, the Gardens below Prague Castle.

Wallenstein Gardens

As I crossed the...

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Narrow paths connect “rooms” in the Inner Garden, this one dedicated to foliage in shades of green.

There are two "must dos" when visiting southwestern Wales' St. David's Head: a tour through the magnificent cathedral from which the peninsula gets its name, and walking a stretch of the pathway that echoes Pembrokeshire's dazzlingly gorgeous coastline. To those, I added a third on a late-May 2018 day: a visit to Sue Clark's Crystal Garden.

"What a glorious time of year for the garden!" Sue Clark exclaimed as she led the way to a picnic table...

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Children passing by the shrine that remains of the monastery — Borromeo Garden, Brno, Czechia. Photos by Yvonne Michie Horn

Think Czech Republic (Czechia) and Prague springs to mind, everyone's mind, as elbow-to-elbow encounters in the city's picturesque Old Town attest. Mention Brno and the reaction is likely to be a scratching of the head. Brno definitely does not spring to mind.

It should. Brno, the Czech Republic's second-largest city (pop. 400,000), is but a 2-hour high-speed train ride from central Prague. Wander Brno's hilly streets and you'll hear nothing but Czech spoken....

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The Embankment Café is a casual place to take a break in London. Photos by Yvonne Michie Horn

Westminster Abbey, the National Gallery, Trafalgar Square, the Houses of Parliament, Big Ben, the Old War Office: London’s concentrated wealth of “must visits” can be an exciting yet exhausting, traffic-noisy, people-packed sightseeing experience.

Time out. A series of three gardens — expanses of immaculately kept lawns and flower beds, ponds, shrubs, towering trees and wandering paths with...

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