The world’s best urban gardens

Hidden behind high walls, Rikugien Gardens feels a world away from Tokyo’s urban buzz. Built around 1700, and little changed since, its transports visitors back in time to the Edo period, when Japan had sealed itself off from the outside world.

The garden consists of 88 zones, set around a sinuous central lake, each of which aims to bring to life scenes from traditional poems across woodlands and rolling hills. It was images of landscapes such as these on imported screens and ceramics that first caused Europeans to break from centuries of formal geometry and strict symmetry to embrace the naturalistic garden style we love today, marking an historic turning point in how the West viewed nature and our place in it. Take a trip as the garden flushes red and gold with autumn leaves, and you'll feel as if you’ve fallen into a fairy tale – and all just a 15-minute taxi ride away from Mandarin Oriental, Tokyo.

Most of the world’s great gardens are sprawling, historical estates, which is what makes the tiny, canal-side garden of the Jim Thompson House Museum in Bangkok such a rare jewel.

Created by an American architect and entrepreneur to house his collection of Asian art, the museum is made up of six traditional open-sided, timber Thai houses that were collected from across the country, dismantled panel by panel and reassembled on site. In the shady courtyards and passageways between these historic buildings, the most spectacular gardens were planted, with densely-packed foliage softening the architecture’s lines, all reflected in tranquil lily ponds.

Perfectly blending the boundaries between inside and out, the verandas cleverly frame views of jungle leaves and exotic orchids as you walk barefoot, surrounded by exquisite art. It’s a fun-filled 15-minute tuk-tuk ride to and from Mandarin Oriental, Bangkok – so even if you only have an hour to spare, it’s close enough for you to lose yourself in a wonderous walk.

Marrakech is famous for its stunning historic gardens but, if you want to see the embodiment of traditional Arabic design principles brought to life in the modern age, head for the Anima André Heller Garden, just a 40-minute drive from Mandarin Oriental, Marrakech.   

With dramatic snow-capped mountains as a backdrop, it feels surreal to be standing amid verdant palms and exotic cacti, in a colour scheme of dazzling kaleidoscopic hues, designed to amplify the already bewildering Alice in Wonderland vibe. It’s no surprise that this garden is the brainchild of an avant-garde artist, with rooms full of mad, colourful sculptures dotted through the space, as if they have fallen from the sky. If you want to feel as if you have left this planet – with your feet still firmly on the ground – this is the place.