These photos are from our holiday when we visited the San Anton Garden & Palace in Attard, Malta and were taken in May 2015. It is the official residence of the President of Malta and is surrounded by both private and public gardens.
The gardens of San Anton, part of which have been open to the public since 1882, are laid out in a formal manner with graceful walkways, sculptures, ornamental ponds, families of ducks and swans and a small aviary.
They contain a large variety of trees and flowers from around the world including a variety of palm trees, cypress, jacarandas, araucarias and other exotic plants, some of them over three centuries old.
The gardens also contain an orangery and it was once the practice of incumbent Governors to give baskets of oranges grown in the palace gardens as gifts at Christmas time.
In 2005, Queen Elizabeth II stayed at this palace during her visit in Malta just as she did in previous Royal visits, both in her capacity as Head of the Commonwealth of Nations and in 1954 and 1967 while she was still Queen of Malta.
For many years it has been customary for visiting Heads of State to plant a tree in memory of their stay in Malta.
