Butterfly Garden (Jardin des Papillons), Grevenmacher

The Butterfly Garden opened in 1989 in Grevenmacher, a wine town on the Luxembourg Moselle. According to the Luxembourg press, it was founded by the Clasen family, who run the Bernard-Massard wine cellars. The sources consulted name neither the builder of the greenhouse nor give details of its early years.

The garden was later taken over by the Yolande Coop, in 2011 according to L'essentiel and in 2012 according to Le Quotidien. The cooperative turned it into one of its vocational inclusion workshops: about ten people with intellectual disabilities work there, in the garden as well as in the shop and the brasserie. The English Wikipedia article also links its operation to the elisabeth group.

The greenhouse was fully renovated in 2024, and that year the garden drew more than 50,000 visitors between April and the end of October, a figure matched again in 2025. The information panels were redone for the 2025 season and supplemented by a free audio guide reached through a QR code. In 2026 three transparent ant-colony stations, linked by tunnels and conceived by a young student, were added to the route.

The garden occupies a tropical greenhouse with about 600 m² of walking space. The temperature is kept constantly at around 28 °C, between 27 and 28 °C according to Le Quotidien, with humidity of 70 to 80 per cent. These conditions become hard to sustain in winter, so the garden takes a five-month break each year and opens only from 1 April to 31 October. The complete renovation of 2024 is not described in the sources consulted, which give no details of the frame or the glazing.

The interior layout puts the emphasis on observation. A pupation cabinet lets visitors watch butterflies emerging from their chrysalises, a laboratory is fitted with modern microscopes, and a bee colony lives behind glass. The three ant stations installed in 2026 are transparent and joined by tunnels. A shop selling handmade gifts and a café complete the ensemble.

In season the greenhouse holds about 500 butterflies of some fifty species; the English Wikipedia article gives more than forty. They arrive as chrysalises, from Costa Rica and Indonesia according to L'essentiel in 2025, and from Costa Rica and the Philippines according to Le Quotidien and the national tourist board; some are also bred on site. In 2025 the first deliveries arrived in early March, before opening. The adults live only about two weeks and fly most actively in sunny weather. The tourist board mentions blue morphos and the monarch among them.

The butterflies share the greenhouse with other animals: Chinese dwarf quails, chameleons, tortoises, several bird species, koi carp and spiders, plus the bee colony behind glass and, since 2026, ant colonies. The sources consulted do not list the tropical plants that provide the butterflies with their setting and food.

The garden is at 56 Route de Trèves in Grevenmacher and opens only from April to October; online booking for a time slot is required. The official website suggests about an hour for the visit, the tourist board one to two hours for families. Sunny days are best, since the butterflies are then most active. The shop and café, also run as part of the inclusion workshop, make for a longer stop. Grevenmacher then lends itself to a walk along the Moselle and through the surrounding vineyards.