The Botanical Garden wins the 2015 excellence certificate

TripAdvisor, the leading travel website in the world, has awarded the Botanical Garden of the Zagreb University Faculty of Science the excellence certificate for 2015 after tourists voted that it is one of the most interesting landmarks in Zagreb.

The Botanical Garden of the Zagreb University Faculty of Science has won the TripAdvisor certificate of excellence for 2015. According to tourists, the Botanical Garden is one of the most interesting and the third most visited landmark in Zagreb.

The Botanical Garden is located in the heart of the city, and it is part of the so-called Lenuci's horseshoe, which is a string of green parks that form a monumental framework of the Lower Town. The Botanical Garden was opened for visitors in 1889. It was laid out in the style of an English landscape garden, in which paths meander around free standing groups of trees and a floral parterre featuring strictly symmetrical lines. Since it is part of Zagreb University’s Faculty of Science, the Botanical Garden has always had an educative as well as a cultural and historic purpose, while it has also been valorised in tourism over the last several decades. Due to its great cultural and historic value, it was protected by law as a monument of garden architecture in 1971.

Numerous rare plants are grown in the garden, which features an arboretum, flower beds, fourteen greenhouses, three rockeries and two man-made lakes which have often served as an inspiration to numerous Croatian painters. Some of the paintings from the “Water lilies” series by great Croatian aquarellist Slava Raškaj, which were painted at the lakes, are nowadays considered among the greatest works of Croatian watercolour painting from the turn of the 19th and the 20th centuries. Among the structures featured in the park, there is a secession style building housing the Botanical Garden’s administration, the building of the Botanical Institute and an exhibition pavilion dating back to 1891.

Of the 4.7 hectares of the Botanical Garden’s total area, the greatest part is occupied by the arboretum, developed in the style of an English landscape garden. Among the numerous plants growing in the garden, there are many indigenous plant species.

Entry to the Botanical Garden is free.