• What maze was designed with a zero percent clear rate in mind?
Why is the largest maze in the world made with bamboo?
From gardens to warehouses, here are 15 labyrinths you can get totally lost in.
15 – Lavender Labyrinth • The Cherry Point Farm and Market in Shelby,
Michigan is mostly known for being a family-owned farm market selling stuff you can eat.
• But in 2001, they also added a flower maze made entirely of French lavender.
• It takes about an hour to traverse the labyrinth and get to the herb garden in the
center.
And then it’s another hour to get out.
14 – Bishop’s Palace Garden • Okay, imagination time.
Picture in your head, a huge castle in the middle of Portugal, like medieval style.
• Now picture a hedge maze outside that castle.
Does it look like this?
• The Bishop’s Palace Garden in Castelo Branco, Portugal is as close to a picture-perfect
hedge garden as you’ll find.
• Of course, it’s not a very confusing maze, with the path going right through the
middle.
But there are plenty of places to hide.
13 – Hampton Court Palace Maze • The oldest surviving hedge maze in the
UK is a big trapezoid covering about a third of an acre of land.
• Created around 1700, it is one of the first popular hedge mazes that was, in fact,
a maze.
• Up to that point, most hedge mazes in the UK were “unicursal” – just a single
path leading to the center.
That would make them more of a walking trail than a maze.
12 – Davis Mega Maze • Every fall in Massachusetts, you can head
out to a corn maze so massive, it’s actually a whole complex.
• It isn’t just one maze – it’s a complex of several, and they’re carved out
brand new with a new theme each fall.
• Some of the more difficult mazes can take hours – trying to clear them all can take
an entire day.
11 – Reignac-sur-Indre • This 10-acre site in Touraine, France,
was built in 1996, and appears in a new form each year.
It draws about 85 thousand visitors a year.
• It’s one of the newer plant mazes in existence, but its design is based on old
Greek and Gothic-era labyrinths. 10 – Annaberg-Buchholz Maze
• Most of these so far have been mazes made with corn or hedges.
• But in 2012, a pair of German artists had a different idea – a cellophane maze.
• This maze is made of a total of 16 kilometers of plastic wrap, wrapped around various trees
in the area.
The creators say the maze is a metaphor for life.
9 – Leeds Castle Maze • This maze originally opened in 1988 with
an aviary.
The aviary has since closed, but the maze is still going strong.
• This is a maze made up of 2,400 yew trees, and looks like the Queen’s crown when viewed
from the center.
• It’s one of the most difficult mazes to solve, because the shape of the maze is
square, but the routes are circular.
8 – Green Man Maze • The Green Man Maze was built in the UK
to celebrate the turn of the millennium.
• It’s called the Green Man Maze because it’s shaped like the Green Man – a pagan
icon.
• It is filled with secrets throughout – little gardens, tunnels, pools – all meant to throw
you off the path.
• So, it’s a good one to check out if you’re more interested in exploring than
solving.
7 – The Tangled Maze • Part maze, part scavenger hunt, this maze
in Creswick, Australia has a cool concept – answering riddles as you explore the maze.
• On the other hand, the site also has a mini-golf course, giant chess set, laser tag,
and an event hall.
• So, it also kind of looks like a bit of a tourist trap.
6 – The Fortress of No Hope • In July 2012, Japan became home to the
“Fortress of No Hope.”
• Rather than a hedge maze, this is more of an escape room with countless doors, paths,
and clues to contend with.
• The facility is about 3,300 square meters – or about 35 thousand square feet – and
the designers say they created it hoping for a zero percent clear rate.
5 – Masone Labyrinth • The largest labyrinth in the world is
this 80 thousand square foot monster near Parma, Italy.
• It was constructed in 2015, and is unique not just because of its size – but because
it was made almost entirely with bamboo.
• Why bamboo?
The maze’s architect, Franco Maria Ricci, said he chose bamboo because, “if I’d
built it with boxwood I would have had to wait twenty years to see it finished, and
I don’t have that kind of time left.”
4 – Andrassy Castle Maze • For many of these destinations, the maze
is problem the main event.
In this case, it might be a tie.
• The maze is certainly awesome, but the Andrassy Castle itself, in Tiszadob, Hungary,
is a sight to behold as well.
• The maze, and surrounding park, dates all the way back to about 1885, when Hungary
was still Austria-Hungary.
3 – Ashcombe Maze • Maybe just walking through a simple hedge
maze isn’t enough for you.
Maybe you also want to hunt for gnomes.
• The Ashcombe Maze has a number of claims to fame, aside from the event they’ve dubbed
the “Great Gnome Hunt.”
• It’s also the oldest – and also the largest – traditional hedge maze in Australia,
and the site is home to the world’s first circular rose maze.
2 – Dole Plantation Pineapple Maze • On the island of Oahu, near Honolulu,
Hawaii, you can find the Pineapple Garden Maze.
• The Dole Plantation maze earned the Guinness World Record for largest maze in the world
in 2001, but later lost it.
• Despite it being called a “Pineapple Maze,” the maze is actually made of several
different plants – but hey, at least the plantation has the Pineapple Express.
• It’s a train that takes you on a tour around the plantation.
What were you thinking about?
1 – Villa Pisani Labirinto • Rumor has it, Napoleon got lost in this
labyrinth – despite him living there.
• Hitler and Mussolini, on the other hand, were scared to even enter at all.
• Those may sound like urban legends, but it’s true that this is one of the most challenging
labyrinths in the world.
• It dates back to about 1720, including the tower that sits at the center of the maze.