Tropical Greenhouses: 19 Indoor Jungles to Warm Up in Europe This Winter
By the Verrière editors · Published on September 30, 2026
Between November and March, a tropical greenhouse is one of the few outings where you take your coat off. Here, among the 1157 greenhouses in the Verrière atlas, are the ones in Europe that deliver the strongest dose of humid heat and lush vegetation — from the vast immersive jungles of zoos to the historic palm houses of botanical gardens.
The great immersive jungles
Here you don't walk past beds behind glass: you walk through the forest. These halls, often built by zoos or parks, recreate a whole ecosystem — streams, waterfalls, birds and sometimes free-roaming primates. Allow at least half a day, and arrive early at weekends.
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Eden Project
🇬🇧 Bodelva, Cornwall, United Kingdom · 2001
A dead clay pit reborn as a rainforest under bubbles.
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Gondwanaland
🇩🇪 Leipzig Zoo, Leipzig, Saxony, Germany · 2011
Beneath a roof spanning 154 m, boats follow the Gamanil river through the forests of three continents.
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Burgers' Bush
🇳🇱 Burgers' Zoo, Arnhem, Netherlands · 1988
The first fully enclosed rainforest at this scale, since imitated by zoos around the world.
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Masoala-Halle
🇨🇭 Zurich, Switzerland · 2001–2003
An entire Madagascan rainforest under a single arched roof.
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Edenya (Pairi Daiza)
🇧🇪 Pairi Daiza, Brugelette (Hainaut), Belgium · 2026
Certified by Guinness World Records in 2026 as the world's largest tropical greenhouse: 40,447 m² under glass.
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Randers Regnskov (Tropical Zoo)
🇩🇰 Randers, Denmark · 1996
A zoo built entirely under glass domes, devoted to the tropical forests of Asia, Africa and America.
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Regenwaldhaus
🇦🇹 Tiergarten Schönbrunn (Vienna Zoo), Austria · 2002
An Asian rainforest slope recreated under glass, at the heart of the world's oldest zoo.
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Regenwaldhaus (Rainforest House)
🇩🇪 Krefeld Zoo, Krefeld, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany · 1998
Under a timber and Plexiglas roof, most of its forty or so animal species move about with no visible barriers.
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Equatorial Dome, ZooParc de Beauval
🇫🇷 Saint-Aignan, Centre-Val de Loire, France · 2017-2020
A 38 m glass dome opened in 2020: a steel frame of about 1,000 tonnes shelters an equatorial forest and close to 25,000 animals.
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The historic palm houses of botanical gardens
More intimate, these 19th-century iron-and-glass greenhouses and their contemporary cousins hold first-rate botanical collections. You come as much for the architecture as for the plants, and they are easy to see in an hour or two in the heart of a big city.
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Grandes Serres du Jardin des Plantes
🇫🇷 Paris, Île-de-France, France · 1834–1836
Rohault de Fleury's two cast-iron and glass pavilions, designed from 1834, mark the beginning of metal architecture in France.
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Great Glasshouses of the Parc de la Tête d'Or
🇫🇷 Lyon, France · 1877–1880
Nicknamed the 'cathedral of glass and steel', they hold a cycad planted at the 1883 opening — the botanical garden's oldest resident.
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Großes Tropenhaus
🇩🇪 Berlin-Dahlem Botanical Garden, Germany · 1905–1907
A permanent equatorial microclimate since 1907.
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Palmenhaus Schönbrunn (Great Palm House)
🇦🇹 Vienna, Schönbrunn Palace Park, Austria · 1880–1882
Three climates, kept at minimums of 6 to 18 °C, under 4,900 m² of scale-like glazing hung on an iron frame of 1882.
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Fata Morgana Greenhouse (skleník Fata Morgana)
🇨🇿 Prague, Troja, Czech Republic · 2004
An S-shaped ribbon 130 metres long, backed by the rock of the Troja hillside, running through three tropical climates.
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Giardino della Biodiversità
🇮🇹 Padua, Italy · 2014
Five biomes under glass, in the world's oldest university botanical garden.
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Barbican Conservatory
🇬🇧 London, England, United Kingdom · 1984
An indoor rainforest perched on level 3 of the Barbican, built to wrap around the theatre's fly tower.
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Pflanzenschauhäuser of the Grugapark
🇩🇪 Essen, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany · 1985
Three glass pyramids of 1985 housing rainforest, cloud forest and succulents, reopened in 2021 under membrane-cushion roofs.
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Schaugewächshäuser of the Flora and Botanical Garden of Cologne
🇩🇪 Cologne, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany · 2026
Three parabolic steel-and-glass wings opened in June 2026, with a canopy walkway through a tropical house and a desert canyon.
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Viktoriahaus and Tropenhaus of the University of Basel Botanical Garden
🇨🇭 Basel, Basel-Stadt, Switzerland · 1898 (Viktoriahaus); 2023 (Tropenhaus)
An 1898 iron-and-glass dome built for the giant water lily, now beside a new Tropenhaus with a walk-through cloud forest house.
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1157 botanical and historic greenhouses, across 76 countries, organized by continent in the complete catalogue.
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