According to local legend, the history of the world’s earliest botanical garden and one of the most beautiful landscaped gardens in Europe, located within modern Croatia in a scenic spot called Trsteno, began when a wealthy local nobleman made an unusual request of travelers and sailors. Like in the folk tale about the fantastic Scarlet Flower, he asked all travelers to bring him seeds from all over the world. More than 500 years have passed since then. The world-famous arboretum created by the Gozze family has spread over the 255 thousand square meter area and become one of the most visited Croatian landmarks.

Start your walk through the picturesque park from an ancient stone aqueduct, which is more than 15 meters long. It was built in 1492 to irrigate the entire arboretum. By the way, the aqueduct is still doing its task correctly. Hmm, will modern irrigation systems serve for more than five centuries? From here, the path takes visitors along centuries-old trees, whose trunks are about 5 meters in diameter. They will remind you of dilapidated temples of ancient Cambodian cities with their intertwined trunks of different trees. Slender evergreen cypresses rise above these giants of nature, reaching the bottomless sky right above the clouds. There reign tranquility and meditative silence. Only tubby local cats disturb the peace with their quiet purring accompanied by the rustle of the tree leaves fluttering in the wind. Centuries-old oriental plane trees, aromas of orange and lemon trees, exotic fruit of kumquat…

It is hard to imagine that all this fantastic flora diversity is located just a few kilometers from the overcrowded tourist Dubrovnik on the way to another Croatian megacity, Split. Besides, within the arboretum premises, the country house of the founder’s family has been preserved. Today, there is a park in the Renaissance style with many exotic species of plants and flowers.