Parc del Laberint d'Horta

Garden · La Vall d'Hebron (Horta-Guinardó)Barcelona,Spain

A cypress maze in the hills above Barcelona, still clipped to its 1790s plan, under a terraced garden of ponds, statues and a false ruin.

The Laberint d'Horta is a cypress maze in the hills above Barcelona. About seven hundred and fifty metres of hedge are still cut to the plan they were given at the end of the eighteenth century, with a statue of Eros standing where the paths finally resolve. Around it climbs a garden of stone terraces, ponds, channelled water and statues from Greek myth, laid out from 1791 by a marquis with a serious interest in mathematics and an Italian architect he brought in. Everything down here is geometry. Above the maze the ground climbs through a later, looser romantic garden of ponds, a false ruin and a cascade, and the temperature drops as you go up under the trees. The Desvalls family kept the place private and sold it to the city in 1967; it opened to the public in 1971. The rules that came with it are still strict: no dogs, no bicycles, no ball games, no picnics, and a limit on how many people are let in at once, because the hedges are the exhibit.

Worth knowing

Good to know

Numbers are capped at the gate — on free days and weekend mornings the queue is real, because the garden lets in only as many people as the hedges can take at once.
Children solve it faster than adults do — the hedges are above adult eye level but the turns are simple, so the maze works as a game rather than a puzzle for anyone under about twelve.
Spring and autumn are the garden's own seasons — the maze can shut in high wind or extreme heat, and in high summer the clipped hedges give no shade at all along the paths.
The upper garden is the quiet half — almost everyone stops at the maze and leaves, so the ponds, the false ruin and the woodland above it stay empty even on a full day.

Things to do

1
Solve the maze without looking over the top
The hedges are above head height for most people, so the puzzle is real. Go in without a plan and count the dead ends. There are two ways to the centre and both go wrong at least once. The statue of Eros is the sign that you got there, and there is a bench beside it.
2
Climb above the maze and see the whole solution at once
Take the stairs above the maze to the highest terrace, past the pavilions and the small temple. From up there the cypress pattern lies flat below you, the whole solution visible in one glance, with the city beyond it. Doing this after the maze rather than before is a different and better experience.
3
Track down the ruin that was built new
Above the formal terraces the garden loosens into ponds and woodland, and somewhere in it stands a deliberately half-collapsed structure built new to look ancient. Nineteenth-century taste wanted melancholy on the way home. Standing in it, listen for the cascade, which is usually audible before it is visible.