Cruising to the world's top gardens
Set sail to see the season's blooms in all their glory
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Your support makes all the difference.With an Exhibition on Screen film of the Royal Academy’s hugely popular exhibition, Painting the Modern Garden: Monet to Matisse, on general release at arthouse cinemas across the UK (exhibitiononscreen.com), gardens – many at their seasonal best – are ripe for a visit.
If you’ve explored all your local National Trust properties, a cruise is a great way to reach gardens further afield – and some have expert lecturers on board to enrich the experience.
Claude Monet diverted the course of a tributary of the Seine to create his garden at Giverny where he painted his famous Water Lilies series. Several companies take their passengers there from nearby Vernon on one-week Seine river cruises starting and ending in Paris. These include Tauck (0800 810 8020; tauck.co.uk), Viking (0800 319 6669; vikingrivercruises.co.uk) and Avalon Waterways (0800 668 1801; avaloncruises.co.uk).
You can also visit Monet’s garden on day trips from large ocean ships docked in Le Havre and smaller ones in Rouen and Honfleur in Nomandy, with lines such as P&O (0843 373 0110; pocruises.com), Cruise & Maritime (0844 998 3788; cruiseandmaritime.com) and Fred Olsen (0800 035 5242; fredolsencruises.com).
There are still some cabins left for a special Royal Horticultural Society cruise sailing round trip from Portsmouth for two weeks on 14 May aboard small ship Minerva (01858 414001; swanhellenic.com). Not only is a visit to Monet’s garden included in the fare (from £999pp), so are tickets and transfers to the Chelsea Flower Show from the ship moored in Greenwich. Among other excursions, at no extra cost, are a visit to the Terra Botanica Park in Anjou from Nantes and a tour of Sausmarez Manor’s garden on Guernsey, named by the RHS as one of “1,001 gardens to visit before you die.” RHS host Lady Christine Skelmersdale, a horticulturalist and garden writer will be on board giving lectures.
Gardeners’ World presenter Carol Klein and garden designer and writer Roddy Llewellyn will be giving talks and escorting visits to a variety of gardens in the Canary Islands on a gardens and walking themed cruise aboard Saga Sapphire (0800 505030; saga.co.uk/cruises) sailing for 14 nights round trip from Southampton on 24 October. Calls include volcanic Lanzarote to see the Palmetum Botanical Gardens specialising in palms; and Madeira, dubbed “the Floating Garden of the Atlantic” for its lush beauty, whose botanical garden has 2,500 species of plants. Fares start at £1,999pp and include travel to and from Southampton, gratuities and wine with meals.
Thanks to the Gulf Stream, gardens on the west coast of Scotland flourish. On a Scotland in Colour cruise aboard very small luxury ship, Hebridean Princess, you can visit nine gardens set amid stunning scenery, including Ormsary House garden, not usually open to the public; remote Lip na Cloiche garden and nursery on the Isle of Mull and Armadale Castle Gardens, famed for carpets of orchids and wildflowers spreading under towering trees. The one-week, all-inclusive cruise sails from Oban on 7 June. The cost is from £3,855pp with Mundy Cruising (020 7399 7670; mundycruising.co.uk).
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