The Magnificent Gardens of Marqueyssac

The town of Vézac in the Dordogne region of France is home to one of the world’s most magnificent landscapes, the famed Gardens of Marqueyssac. Laid out on a cliff overlooking the Dordogne valley between Beynac and La Roque-Gageac, the Marqueyssac gardens cover an area of ​​22 hectares. There are over 150,000 hand carved century-old box-trees and adorned with belvederes, rocks, water, grass glades, dry-stone huts, roundabout, a Gothic chapel, and playgrounds for children.

The chateau and the garden surrounding it was built at the end of the 17th century by Bertrand Vernet de Marqueyssac, Counselor to Louis XIV, on cliffs overlooking the Dordogne Valley. The original garden à la française was attributed to a pupil of André Le Nôtre, and featured terraces, alleys, and a kitchen garden surrounding the chateau. Between 1830 and 1840, Julien Bessières constructed a chapel and a grand alley one hundred meters long for horseback rides.

The Lost Gardens of Heligan

The Lost Gardens of Heligan, near Mevagissey in Cornwall, is one of the most popular botanical gardens in the UK. The gardens were created by members of the Cornish Tremayne family, over a period from the mid-18th century up to the beginning of the 20th century – the garden evolving and becoming more extravagant with each passing generation. Throughout the 19th century, the gardens thrived, growing larger and requiring greater staff to manage them. Before the outbreak of World War I, the Tremayne estate employed 22 gardeners. Many of those loyal gardeners went to fight, and after the war their numbers had diminished so that the gardens fell into severe disrepair. As the rest of the estate was rented out, the gardens became an afterthought and were not rediscovered until the 1990s.

Corinth Canal, Greece

The famous Corinth Canal connects the Gulf of Corinth with the Saronic Gulf in the Aegean Sea. It cuts through the narrow Isthmus of Corinth and separates the Peloponnesian peninsula from the Greek mainland, thus effectively making the former an island.