Honestly, I was feeling underwhelmed by the Orto Botanico di Padova. It is considered to be the oldest academic botanical garden still in its original location. It also has a great impact on the design of botanical gardens around the world. In my mind, I recognize the importance of the garden but I just can’t be impressed with what I was seeing. To my eyes, it looks like a garden although I know that it is so much more than that. I guess it is hard to make something like this very impressive. The plants on display didn’t look very healthy, but that might just be because it was winter.

The general layout of the garden is circular but there is more nuance than that. Within the circle, there is a square. The square is then divided into four plots. Each of these four plots of land are then divided into concentric circular plots where the plants are then planted. In this way, the plants are separated by the region where they came from. This makes it easier to remember where they came from instead of mixing everything together. It is possible to walk between plots of land and look their names up. However, a lot of the plots of land weren’t that appealing and I didn’t bother looking them up.

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