Giardini di Massimiliano - Maximilian's Pleasure Gardens

Maximilian's Pleasure Gardens are located on the island of Lokrum, just six hundred meters off the coast of Dubrovnik. The gardens are defined by their integration of exotic, non-native plant species directly into the rugged, natural island landscape, a style established in eighteen fifty-nine. This was the year the Austrian Archduke Maximilian of Habsburg, later the Emperor of Mexico, purchased the island to serve as his private summer retreat. He transformed the ruins of an ancient Benedictine monastery into a mansion and spent his time there treating the entire island as a personal botanical laboratory.