The Laberint d'Horta: the oldest garden in the city
An 18th-century cypress maze, a romantic waterfall garden, and the quiet of the upper Horta hills. This is a Claude-drafted route awaiting the editor's walk.

1. Mundet (L3)
The metro at the top of the line, on the edge of the city before the hills take over. A five-minute walk up to the garden gate. Come early on a weekday; the *Laberint* caps its numbers and Wednesdays and Sundays are free, which means busier.

2. The neoclassical terrace
The garden was laid out from 1791 for the Desvalls family — Italian-designed, geometric, the oldest of its kind in Barcelona. Start on the lower terrace among the clipped box and the pavilions, and read the garden as a single composition climbing the slope.

3. The cypress maze
The reason it's called the labyrinth — a true hedge maze of clipped cypress, with Eros at the centre. Go in. Getting briefly lost is the entire point, and there's a statue and a small triumph waiting when you solve it.

4. The romantic upper garden and waterfall
Above the maze the design loosens into the nineteenth-century romantic style — a false stream, a cascade, a shaded pool, statues half-hidden in the planting. Cooler and greener than below. Sit by the water; almost nobody climbs this high.

5. The Desvalls pavilion and canal
The little neoclassical pavilion and the long reflecting canal — the formal set piece of the lower garden, best seen on the way back down with the light behind you. The whole estate was a private folly until the city took it in the 1970s.

6. The upper Horta lanes
Leave the garden and take a loop through the quiet streets below it before the metro — old Horta, low houses, the city's edge dissolving into hill. A calm coda before Mundet takes you back down.

The Laberint d'Horta: the oldest garden in the city