They served as a means of projecting power and wealth, but were also places to stage a certain kind of joie de vivre. Alongside pomp and circumstance, palace gardens in Europe paid homage to nature and these green idylls offered a soothing kind of refuge from daily life.

Many of the palace gardens that tourists can visit today are defined by baroque splendour – just think of Versailles or Potsdam’s Sanssouci, the royal residences outside Paris (France) and Berlin (Germany). But there are also other styles to discover, as this guide to Europe’s somewhat lesser-known palatial gems shows.