Conservatory Garden

Central Park's only formal garden hides behind a magnificent wrought-iron gate — made in Paris in 1894 for the Vanderbilt mansion on 58th Street — at a stretch of Fifth Avenue most visitors never reach. Inside are six acres split into three gardens in three styles: an Italian lawn with a single jet fountain and a wisteria pergola, a French parterre ringed with seasonal beds, and an English garden of winding paths around the Burnett Fountain's lily pool.

It is also a designated quiet zone — no runners pounding through, no amplified anything — which makes it the most reliably peaceful six acres in the park. Spring brings twenty thousand tulips; autumn swaps them for Korean chrysanthemums; the crabapple allées on either side of the Italian garden go over entirely in late April and are worth planning around.