In Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Harry fights monsters in the Labyrinth Gardens, in The Tudors, Henry VIII, the wife-killer, and Anne Boleyn, England's most famous mistress, linger in the Labyrinth Gardens at Hampton Court Palace, and in Princess Sissi, the place where the romance between Princess Sissi and her husband Joseph takes place.
Labyrinths first originated in ancient Greek culture. King Minos of Crete angered the gods by sacrificing a common bull to Poseidon, the god of the sea. As punishment, his wife gave birth to the Minotaur Asterion, a white bull, and the architect Daedalus was ordered to build a sanctuary to imprison the Minotaur, the famous Labyrinth of Minos.
Getting lost is one of the most annoying things people can do. But sometimes getting lost can be a worthwhile and memorable experience, especially if you are in one of the most fantastical and beautiful labyrinths in the world, and these labyrinths are built in different forms, some with hedges, some with corn plants, and so on.
Here we take a look at 8 of the world's most famous labyrinths of gardens!
1. The most complex labyrinth - Villa Pisar Garden Labyrinth, Italy
The Labyrinth of the Villa Pisar Gardens in Venice, Italy, is the most complex labyrinth in the world. Designed in 1720, it is the most famous and best-preserved surviving labyrinth in Europe. Legend has it that Napoleon was once 'lost' here.
2. Largest botanical labyrinth - Hainault Labyrinth, France
The world's largest botanical labyrinth is located in Haina Andre, France. The labyrinth is planted with plants such as corn and sunflowers, and each year the seeds are sown in a different design so that the following year a new labyrinth pattern appears.
It is said that over 85,000 people tried to get out of this 10-acre maze when it opened in 1996.
3. The longest labyrinth - Doyle's Bromeliad Labyrinth, USA
Located in Honolulu County on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, the Dole Bromeliad Garden is the longest labyrinth in the world. Composed of more than 11,400 Hawaiian plants, including the state flower hibiscus, the maze is approximately 5 kilometers long and the fastest person out of the maze is rewarded and recorded in the history of Dulle Gardens, with their name recorded at the entrance to the maze.
4. The oldest hedge maze - Hampton Court Maze, England
The Hampton Court Maze is the oldest hedge maze in England, built in 1689. The labyrinth has been described in many novels and poems and was visited by thousands of visitors in the time of William III.
5. The Imprint, a memorial to a mythical labyrinth
The Imprint is a labyrinth built in 1975 to commemorate a mythological story. The labyrinth is shaped like a huge, large footboard, which is said to represent the foot of a giant or the Minotaur (the Minotaur had large feet).
6. The oldest hedge maze - Ashcombe Maze Gardens, Australia
The Ashcombe Maze Gardens is Australia's oldest and most famous traditional hedge maze, located on the Mornington Peninsula east of Shoreham.
The nearby garden comes with an extra rose maze for you to play in, with 1200 rose bushes and over 200 varieties of roses, making it the oldest rose maze in the world.
The hedge maze contains over 1,000 cypress trees and thousands of square meters of paths. With 217 varieties of roses with more than 1200 bushes, forming a wall 3 meters high and 2 meters wide.
7. Longleat Hedge Maze, the largest maze in the UK
The Longleat Hedge Maze, located in Wiltshire, is the largest maze in the UK and was opened to the public in 1975. The whole maze is rectangular in shape and consists of at least 16,000 English yew trees, covering an area of about 0.6 hectares. It takes visitors between 20 and 90 minutes to get out of this maze.
The Labyrinth of Longleat Hedges also has six wooden bridges from which visitors can stand and look out over the watchtower at the center of the labyrinth. However, it is not easy to reach the watchtower from the entrance, so the paths inside are designed to be winding.
8. Peace Maze, the largest permanent hedge maze
The Peace Maze is located in Castlewellan Forest Park in Northern Ireland and covers an area of approximately 11,000 square meters (2.7 acres). It is called the Peace Maze because it is made up of 16 acres of redbud trees, a symbol of peace.
Officially opened in 2001 by Mrs. Brid Rodgers, Northern Ireland's Minister for Agriculture, the Peace Maze is the world's largest permanent hedge maze.
