The Parc del Laberint, the oldest garden in Barcelona, covering over 18 acres, has a long history. It is one of the remaining vestiges of the extravagance of the Spanish monarchy in Catalunya. In 1791, Antoni Desvalls, marquis of Llupiaand Alfarrás, began landscaping the property of his estate then located on the outskirst of the city. The park still has many traces of the idyllic lifestyle of the marquis, including a monument constructed to commemorate a splendid afternoon spent in the company of the king's nephew and his new bride.
The labyrinth, a series of tall two-metre-high hedges that link together in a maze formation, makes up the central element of the park. The design of the hedge maze beautifully re-enacts the original mythology of the labyrinth. At its entrance, the visitor finds a classical frieze depicting Minos welcoming Theseus's arrival in Crete on his mission to enter the labyrinth and destroy its inhabitant, the human-eating Minotaur (a half-bull, half-human monster). Theseus proceeded to fall in love with Minos's daughter Ariadne. Likewise, the successful visitor to the maze will follow the correct paths to reach the labyrinth's centre and find 'love' - embodied by a statue of Cupid - and then carefully retrace his or her steps to escape.
Close by the labyrinth is the temple of Ariadne: a small temple with a dome held up by Tuscan columns holding a life-sized marble sculpture of the figure. However, a wrong turn on the return from the centre can lead down to another exit from the Labyrinth and to eternal unfulfilled love - represented by the sculpture of Echo, the forest nymph, who hopelessly fell in love with Narcissus who was unable to love her back, nor anyone beyond himself.
In the middle of the 19th century, the marquis's successors expanded the park with a Romantic garden. The expansion of the park takes on a less orderly form with a greater variety of plants, large trees with dense foliage, and a natural-looking waterfall that gives more of the sensation of a landscaped forest than a royal garden. It is the most meditative and isolated area of the park and, perhaps, the best place for privacy for lovers, or just anyone who wants privacy - a reclusive nun once took up residence there in a small cabin, according to the brochure about the park issued by the Ajuntament's Parcs i Jardins department.
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