The Royal Botanic Gardens in Trinidad and Tobago are located in Port of Spain across the street from the north end of Queen’s Park Savannah. The Gardens were established in 1818 and are one of the oldest Botanic Gardens in the world. The landscaped garden occupies 61.8 acres and contains over 700 trees, of which 13% are indigenous to Trinidad and Tobago and the others are collected from every continent of the world.
On the garden grounds there is a small burial plot in which former Governors of Trinidad have been buried since 1819. Also, right next to the Royal Botanic Garden is the official residence of the Trinidad & Tobago President (formerly the Governors until independence). The local blue limestone building was built in 1876 and today it is being renovated and has partially hidden under a giant shed to protect it.
The Gardens are open free to the public every day of the year from 6am to 6pm. We visited after seeing the Emperor Valley Zoo (I wrote about this in the last blog), which sits right next door on the opposite side as the President’s house. As we walked over the sky was very dark and we barely made it to the guard’s shack before it opened up and poured. Lucky for us the guard lady was so nice and let us hang out with her as the rain passed. The next bit of luck is that it stopped raining just long enough for us to see the entire Royal Botanic Garden and make it back to the guard shack before raining again. Whee, just made it. 😊
